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Our favorite week of the year is coming up fast, and in less than a week time we shall be praying for rain not<\/em> to grace the beautiful and green Minho region. If you\u2019ve been following us, you know we rarely miss an edition of Vodafone Paredes de Coura<\/a>, regardless of the part of Europe we\u2019re living in at the moment.\u00a0<\/p>\n And, of course, half of the reason why you still care about us is our insistence in creating the famous printable timetables that, inevitably, you\u2019ll lose somewhere in the festival grounds before the third day. Stop saving trees and print some for your friends, too. PDF version<\/a> \/ editable XLS version<\/a>. Scroll down for our special Spotify playlist with our 11 artist picks! ALEK REIN<\/strong> (Tue 15, 22:30, Main Street stage)<\/p>\n Plenty of people choose Paredes de Coura as their yearly summer holiday destination. Why wouldn\u2019t the organisation put together an extended four day warm up? From Saturday 12 to Tuesday 15, a small stage is set up in the town center, where up and coming Portuguese artists play free entrance concerts from 22:30 to past midnight.\u00a0<\/p>\n Alek Rein is probably the most interesting of the bunch (but be on the lookout for the Sunflowers [Sat 12, 23:30] and Nice Weather for Ducks [Sun 13, 22:30], too) and could easily be in the main festival programme. The southern psychedelia of his debut LP, Mirror Lane<\/em>, has been on heavy rotation around here late last year. Having a relaxed, hearty dinner at one of the village\u2019s nice and cheap restaurants would be a good reason to go to Coura earlier, but this year there\u2019s an added value to it.<\/p>\n M\u00c3O MORTA<\/strong> (Wed 16, 21:55, Vodafone stage)<\/p>\n Just like the festival itself, Mutantes S.21<\/em>, the iconic fourth album by the most interesting Portuguese rock band ever turns 25 this year. They\u2019ve also put out one of the more memorable shows of the festival\u2019s history, in a rainy and muddy night back in 2007 – the first time yours truly, an inexperienced camper, went to the festival and swore to never do it again. Ten years later, they\u2019re back to trigger veterans\u2019 old memories and show the new kids who still keeps the Portuguese rock and roll crown.\u00a0<\/p>\n (Yes, The Wedding Present<\/strong> and Future Islands<\/strong> will surely be two of the most celebrated gigs of the festival on what\u2019s probably the best Day 1 of the festival history, but we can\u2019t focus on everything…)\u00a0<\/p>\n KATE TEMPEST<\/strong> (Wed 16, 01:55, Vodafone stage)<\/p>\n Earlier this year we went to South London\u2019s Brixton Academy to witness Kate Tempest\u2019s homecoming concert in her biggest stage so far. The humbleness in Tempest\u2019s words and facial expressions when taking and leaving the stage certainly triggered a shy tear in the local kids who have witnessed her rise from performing in open mics to performing in one of the biggest venues in the city and huge festivals like Glastonbury. If you told me ten years ago that a poet, rapper and spoken-word artist like Kate Tempest would play Paredes de Coura\u2019s – or any other Portuguese summer festival\u2019s – main stage, I would probably laugh at you. If you told me someone like her would be the most interesting artist performing in that festival – or any festival – in 2017, I\u2019d politely ask if you need medical help. I\u2019m so glad you were right. There\u2019s no one like Kate Tempest and you\u2019d be a fool to be somewhere else than right in the front of the stage during her time slot.<\/p>\n TIMBER TIMBRE<\/strong> (Thu 17, 20:30, Vodafone.FM stage)<\/p>\n The Canadian quartet has been releasing stellar records on Arts & Crafts since 2009, but it wasn\u2019t until sometime during the wait between 2014\u2032s proper breakthrough Hot Dreams<\/em> and this years\u2019 Sincerely, Future Pollution<\/em> that I\u2019ve seen more and more people join us in our devotion through enthusiastic Facebook posts. Better late than never, and their announcement for this year\u2019s edition was one of the most celebrated between the festival\u2019s fans. The small stage will be packed for Timber Timbre\u2019s debut concert in the country and they will surely come back soon.<\/p>\n CAR SEAT HEADREST<\/strong> (Thu 17, 19:40, Vodafone stage)<\/p>\n Sometime during Primavera Sound 2016, around dinner time. This weird kid called Will Toledo had jumped to the \u201cindie\u201d spotlight a couple of weeks ago when his second \u201cproper\u201d album – after a shitton of Bandcamp-released bunch of records that sounded like Pavement demos –\u00a0Teens of Denial<\/em>, was released on Matador.\u00a0Maybe a couple of hundred kids would be curious to see them at Pitchfork\u2019s stage at 9pm with something else going on in the main stages, so we thought. Well, a couple of hundred kids _were shouting the lyrics to the newly released songs _and hundreds more flocked to witness the start of yet another love story between an indie rock band and the enthusiastic Portuguese sub-25 public. Toledo and his band have so far matured their live show, as we were fortunate to witness in a sold out show in Brussels\u2019 L\u2019Orangerie du Botanique last March. Can\u2019t wait to see them again.<\/p>\n AT THE DRIVE-IN<\/strong>\u00a0(Thu 17, 23:15, Vodafone stage)<\/p>\n Well, you don\u2019t really need an introduction, right? This is maybe the laziest way of introducing a band, but of course you know who they are. At the Drive-In are the band you want to see because you probably never did, either because you were too young to know who they were back in 2000 or too young\/too poor to travel elsewhere to see them back then. Their two most famous \u201cspin off\u201d bands, Sparta (2007) and The Mars Volta (2008) have played in the festival before (no one really cared about Sparta, though) but the original band was yet to play in Portugal. Founding member (and Sparta\u2019s frontman) Jim Ward is not with the band anymore, but Cedric, Omar et al. have just released their first post-break-up record,\u00a0in\u2022ter a\u2022li\u2022a<\/em>\u00a0and seem to be enjoying themselves in this new reincarnation of the band so far. Don\u2019t forget to not<\/strong> mosh<\/a>.<\/p>\n JAMBINAI<\/strong> (Thu 17, 02:00, after hours stage)<\/p>\n What\u2019s a South Korean band who play post-rock music with traditional Korean instruments doing in an after hours time slot? Well, it\u2019s waiting for you to go see them. Because you need to. If this description and the two tracks on our playlist didn\u2019t make you feel like you should, chances are there\u2019s something wrong with you.<\/p>\n ANDY SHAUF<\/strong> (Fri 18, 19:00, Vodafone.FM stage)<\/p>\n The Bearer of Bad News is coming to Coura and he\u2019s already the winner of the\u00a0\u201cArtist Who Sounds Like Something You\u2019d Listen To in a bolachas.org Playlist, No Shit They\u2019re Promoting Their Concert\u201d award of 2017. The Party<\/em> was one of our favorite albums of 2016 and we\u2019re glad we can see Andy Shauf still promoting that amazing record before venturing on new endeavours. Catchy, sophisticated but simple pop tunes, too perfect for those Coura lazy late afternoons (too bad he\u2019s not playing the main stage for \u201csitting in the grass\u201d purposes).<\/p>\n BEACH HOUSE<\/strong>\u00a0(Fri 18, 00:45, Vodafone stage)<\/p>\n List of bands everyone else has seen live except for me: Beach House. That\u2019s right, even though they play Portugal (and, frankly, everywhere) all the time, this will be the first time I\u2019ll get to see the most important dream pop duo of the past decade, so shut the hell up if you happen to be nearby and help me pray for a good career-spanning setlist (like this one<\/a>, please).<\/p>\n ALEX CAMERON<\/strong> (Sat 19, 20:30, Vodafone.FM stage)<\/p>\n Fresh off a hot new track from his forthcoming album (a duet with Angel Olsen), the Australian exquisite (fancy word for \u2018weirdo\u2019) songwriter will still be presenting songs from his critically acclaimed debut album, Jumping the Shark<\/em>, released exactly a year ago.<\/p>\n
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