Sonic Blast Moledo, Portugal Aug 7-10, 2019

Sonic Blast Moledo , Portugal 2019

The line up is really great again this year and a bit heavier. The festival was hit with 4 cancellations in the last month- The Obsessed, My Sleeping Karma, Satan’s Sayers and one other so they had to find some replacements (Domkraft, Belzebong, Stoned Jesus)

15:15

Anyway, we arrived on the Weds afternoon for the pre-party down at the beach like last year. This year though, I am getting to play with Martin in our new group called Doctors of Space.  Fuzzil and Greengo (played last year) also play tonight..

The weather was cloudy, foggy and a bit of light rain that just came and went as it pleased.  A lot of folks around and the first band down at the bar was starting at 17, a new PT band called Razamataz.  Martin and Kate had not arrived so we just hung out and had an ice cream. They arrived about 16:15 and I tried to find out from my contact where our key to where we would stay tonight was. He said Ricardo (the organizer had it).  We finally saw Ricardo around 17:30 and he did not have the key. IT was at the venue, we would get it later. We had hoped to go and try to find it and drop off our stuff but this did not happen.

Anyway, we had a beer or two and heard both Razamataz, which was a 70s inspired instrumental or nearly instrumental band with guitar, bass, drums, congas and keyboards. They had some really good songs and some nice soloing as well. This is a band I would like to hear more of.  Their was a decent crowd. They had moved the stage from last year due to the rain.

Dumbo Wax drummer

Dumbo Wax was a crazy guitar and drum duo where the guitar player, sang or yelled. It was high energy and aggressive music that got the people moving. Musically it was nothing special but I did like the guitar players' use of effects to go from a distorted bass to a guitar sound and back.  Interesting..  Lots of people..

We hung out at this bar and had another beer and then headed over and got a table at Ruvios, where all the bands would play tonight. They had to move the mixer and PA from the other bar to hear. We managed to get a table and order some drinks and food and this was our spot until we played later that night.

Everything was so slow and the soundman who was incharge, he was the nicest guy and he was sure he could get it all in order and start on time but they did not.  Soundcheck was to be at 20 and at 20, there was no gear or anything on the stage even.  It was a mess but Fuzzil managed to start amongst chaos at 22:45. The place was so insanely packed by starting so late to set up, the soundman caused a lot of problems for himself and the band had terrible sound. If you were right in the front you got the guitars and it sounded good but out in the room you only heard bass and drums and the vocal. Sad.. People just got into the energy though as this band had it! Reminded me a bit of Lecharous Gaze without the charismatic singer. Fun stuff and the people in the front were insane, crawling on the room, moshing. It was wild.

Fuzzil

The first band blew out the monitors so Martin and I were pretty fucked as we had to have monitors to hear. IT took the other band almost as long as we had 15mins, just to get their stuff off before I could start to set up all my synths and it was so crowded on and around the stage it was difficult. I managed and got all my sounds together. They found an old monitor and it was working and then Martin had a problem with his pedal board. Someone had spilled water on it. IT took awhile to figure it out but he just had to reset it. 

The Doctors of Space, which is what we call our project now was super well received. I thought we would clear the room but people were into it for sure.  I have no idea what it sounded like in the room compared to on stage but it was less than ideal for us. I think we played a really cool show though and Martin was on fire on the solos and I felt in the zone.. Amazing audience. Wow.. The biggest we ever will play for.  500 or more people.

It was 1:30 so we did not stay to see Greengo!  They played last year at the pool and are a very intense band.

The weather is supposed to be quite chaotic tomorrow and they had a lot of tech problems so all the bands are going to play on the main stage today and if the weather is better, the pool will open the next day.  11:30 now and we can’t get into our room until 15. First band, Jesus the Snake is on at 14.

Day 2

Today was a disaster. There was super high winds all day long and some period with no rain but mostly from about 17-18 all the way until Earthless was nearly finished it was raining.

Jesus the Snake  (from Spain) started things off on the main stage about 10mins early, which was good.  They played all instrumental music highly inspired by Pink Floyd. They had two keyboard players, bass, drums and two guitarists.  I think they played for about 45mins. The opening number was really great but sadly the guitar player on the right side could not be heard at all. He was playing all this slide guitar. I tried to tell the sound man (which was their own). They did get a guy up to fix the mic, which was apparently now working but he had not even known and that did not help. It was not until I told him again and then finally he made the guitar player audible for the last 2 songs or so. What the fuck??  Anyway, I filmed one of their shorter more stoner rock songs but they also did a quite jazzy thing. Great band.  I tried to get their CD but they never brought it to the merch stand. 

Jesus the Snake

 High Fighter, from Germany, sounded very intense but I did not see any of them as we could not check into our place until 15 and this was when they played.  They sounded very intense and our friends said they were good.

Now, there was trouble, due to the weather both the next bands, Maidavale and Minami Deutsch were not even in the country yet.  Porto airport is about 75mins away.  There was a huge delay so no band played between 15:45 and 17:45.

I hung out in the press office for awhile and did an unscheduled interview. I was supposed to interview Minami at 16:20 but they had not even arrived at the festival yet.  I had requested interviews with Graveyard and also the Devil and the Almighty Blues but they never responded to the press request, either band. Pity..

 When, Maidavale, finally hit the stage, the weather was really bad, with high winds and some rain.  I had not seen them since Muskelrock, perhaps 4 years earlier and that was one of the very early gigs. They had matured a lot! Wow. I thought they were fantastic and that last song of the set blew me away.  Great.. Sadly, due to trying to catch up as the festival was now 2hrs behind, they only played about 35mins.

Maida Vale

Minami Deutsch was next and on very quickly. Perhaps 15mins but they only played for a bit over 20mins. That ws very disappointing and I can’t even imagine doing that. Spending hours travelling to the airport, security, plane flight 75mins drive to festival and only play 20mins?? I would could and would not do it. They could not even sell any merch as the merch tent was filled with people escaping the rain and there was no table space for the bands anyway. Sonic Blast took up 50% of all the table space, leaving a small space for Graveyard and High Fighter and nothing for anyone else. There were some shirt merch people, a group sellng patches and some shirts and a few boxes of vinyl, but no where for there other bands.  This needs to be organized so that every band has at least 50cm of space dedicated to them.

Minami Deutsch

Minami Deutsch was very CAN like and hypnotic and got really intense and heavy at the end but it was not really that good I did not think. NO guitar solos, just riffs, some crazy vocals at times…  It did not catch me.

The Devil and the Almighty Blues, this was one the 3 bands I most looked forward to see at the festival. Sadly, we had booked dinner at a local restaurant, Hamiltons, one of the few in town for 19:30. Figures I The Devil were on at 18 and we would be able to see the but miss Lucifer, whom I had seen before.  Since the schedule was fucked now, I choose to see the band all my wife, Eetu, Martin and Kate, all went and had a nice meal and I stood in the wind and rain and got lost in the heavy stoner blues of the The Devil and the Almighty Blues!!  I love it but the sound was blowing all over the place so you lost a lot of the high end and guitar solos in the wind.  Tough. I did record it though.  They played mostly material from the new album and people really liked it a lot.  

Set List: Salt the Earth, Root to Root, Lay Down, Time Ruins Everything, The Ghosts of Charlie Barracuda, ?

Lucifer, I heard the entire concert from a distance but I had to escape the wind and rain for a while. They actually sounded really good and played a killer classic 70-80s rock set. It was mostly originals if not all except for Snowblind by Black Sabbath.

Monolord from Sweden was next and they were slowly making up the 2hrs and were only about 90mins behind schedule now. I had not eaten much today as there was so much going on with all the bands, rain, chaos, etc.. Anyway, they had a heavy sound the weather was really fierce now, some high winds and belting rain coming in sheets. I had to say it was fucking miserable and I left just before the end to go back to our apartment.

Set List: Empress Rising, Lord of Suffering, The Bastard Son, Audhumbla, Dear Lucifer, Wormland, Rust

The good thing for us is that the apartment is about 800m from the stage and on the balcony and living room, you can hear the bands perfectly!  Very loud actually.. So I sat and had a beer with my wife and we heard the entire Earthless show.  IT was a very different set and vibe from the short songs of last year to more long jammed out tracks. I think they did 5 songs total and they had a special guest come out for a song I did not recognize at the end. It was a bit shorter set but super intense. Best band of the day for sure..

Earthless- Pic by Eetu

The Graveyard guys arrived in the early afternoon and I had a chat with them and they remember me and say hello. They all seem to be in a good mood. Rikard introduced me to Oscar. All super nice guys..   Anyway, I was so exhausted and my wife was already asleep. I was falling asleep and just could not pull myself together enough to head out the door back to the wind, cold, and mud.. So I missed Graveyard and

Solar Corona. Damn….

Day 3.

10     The winds have calmed a bit but it is still windy but no rain and the sun pokes through a bit. It was still pretty uncertain whether they would use the pool stage today or not . I am guessing they will not and all bands will be on the main stage again.  A lot of cool bands again today but it can not touch the amazing line up of yesterday. Wow..  They had decided not to use the pool today so all bands are on the main stage again.

O bom O Mau e o Azevedo is a instrumental surf band from Porto. They started 10mins late. They were all dressed in black suits and ties and sunglasses. It was a nice relaxed way to start the day.  They were good at what they did but not very original. Straight surf instrumentals with a bit of the Shadows thrown in. The one guitar player did a bit of freaky guitar at the end of the show. Nice. The small crowd liked them.

Mr Mojo, another Porto band, were four piece stoner riff rock (no guitar solos despite two guitars) with some good grooves but for me, the vocal did not fit well. He was angry and aggressive and worked a bit against the music rather than with it. It was a hard contrast. We did not get into them really.

Mr Mojo

  Petyr a quartet from San Diego was next.  I had caught these guys at the skate park at Roadburn and they rocked.  The band was really good with dual lead guitar and both guys sang the vocals. Now the crowd was growing and it was not as windy, but still looked like it could rain.  Sadly, the main sound guy was letting a new young guy do the sound and it was way too bassy and just sounded like a lot of kick drum and thunder on the field, sort of ruined their sound.

Petyr

Zig Zags is a US band that is very intense. I have a 7” and maybe something else but have never seen them live. These guys were very inspired by the first Metallica record. Fast, punky, aggressive, metal.  Audience was totally into it and their was a mosh pit.  They were tight and good but lacked variety. I would have liked them to mix in a few slower tracks. It all was small variations of the same sort of thing. Audience loved it. 

Viaje a 800 is a quite old stoner band from Spain. It is cool that they are still playing. I had never seen them live but I have a couple of their albums.  This was the best band so far today. I really liked them, especially at the end of the show. The first songs were a bit too much a like, mainly because the guitar player was using this wah and flanger on all the songs.  He used his few effects pedals well and did some cool guitar things especially the last 20min song. This was great. Audience was really into it as well.

Kaleidobolt from Finland, we missed as we had to get some food but the description sounded very intense and my friends Javi and Eetu said they were great. 

Belzebong were one of the last minute replacements for eithr the Obsessed or My Sleeping Karma. Last time I saw them was in Oslo. I also saw a bit of their show at Psycho Las Vegas. This is a very intense instrumentl stoned psyched out doom. They are really good at what they do.  WOW… I came in during the 2^nd song and the stage was green with some cool horror movie visuals.  They had a massive sound and were full on into their coordinated head and shoulder movements, the three guys.  They don’t have a lot of variety to their stoner doom but they do it well and what sets them aside is their lead guitar player who plays a lot of cool solos with nice effects on the guitar. This gives them a psychedelic edge. They were great.

Belzebong

Stoned Jesus and Orange Goblin had switched times for some reason. There had not been any announcements but that was ok with us. So Orange Goblin was next and just totally pulverized the place with their loud, hard biker rock.  They opened the show with the same openers as last year but then they played a lot of different songs from 2 years ago, which was great.  I was afraid it would all be the same. They played 1-2 new songs from their last album, a cover of No Class my Motorhead, another song Renegade, dedicated to Lemmy, the Whip, had the crowd going wild.. Ben is a great front man but tries to be a bit too much like Ozzy, trying to get people to mosh, yell, scream, raise your fist, etc.. every song..   I don’t want to hear people scream when the guy is doing a guitar solo.  The crowd was into it. It was a great show. We really liked it and the sound was excellent except for the highly gated drums.

Set List: Scorpionica, The Filthy & the Few, Sons of Salem, Saruman's Wish, Renegade, Cozmo Bozo, Some You Win, Some You Lose, Stand for Something, No Class, Sabbath Hex, Ghosts of the Primitives, The Devil's Whip, They Come Back (Harvest of Skulls), Red Tide Rising

Orange Goblin

Stoned Jesus were pretty slow to get it together and the audience had shrunk a bit after OG but they would slowly filter back in. This is a band that is quite popular in Portugal. Igor, the guitar player and singer is a really nice guy. I have met him a few times. Anyway, this was their 2^nd to last festival gig and he said something about putting to sleep some of the material for a while after these gigs. Anyway, the played some of the ones I really like from 7 Thunders but I was not that into the new material. I have to say, the last album, I did not like it at all. IT was too much a change in style. They played a few tracks but it was a good rocking set with a lot of variety but quite short. Less than an hour.

Set List: Hands Resist Him, Excited, Black Woods, Thessalia, I'm the Mountain, Apathy, Here Come the Robots

Stoned Jesus

Dopethrone was just too late, so I missed this Canadian band for like the 4^th time.   Sorry, I never see the last bands as I am a morning person and this is really hard for me to stay up that late.

It was a great day and there was only rain a few times for only a few minutes and then it really cleared up a lot in the evening and the wind died down. You could even see the moon. It was not cold either, which was great.

Day 4

The weather is great and they will use the pool area today. I think people are really happy about this. Sue and I arrived at 1330 and there was not many people there. The canopy for the pool stage was destroyed in the storm so there was no shade for the bands. It was ok though as the weather was great. Sun with some clouds and in the low 20s (C).

Here the Captain Speaking, the captain is Dead from Spain was the first band. I had arranged to interview them as well later in the day. It was great to finally see and meet them. It was the same sound guy as the last few years and he is just not good enough. Why do they hire this guy??? He does not listen well to the bands or pay attention?? Almost no guitar for half their concert.  Lots of bass and drums, synths can’t hear them well either. So sad…  The band played all new material, nothing from their cassette release. I quite enjoyed it. A sort of space-kraut rock band.  It is totally my kind of music pity about the sound. Here is the interview I did with the band after their show.

Maggot Heart was a trio from Sweden with two female members (Bass, guitar (and lead vocal) and a male drummer. IT was some sort of dark rock and roll. I guess Ricardo liked their records but I have to say they were not a good live band. The audience was not getting into it and gave only a small applause.. They tried but it was the least good band of the entire festival.  Pity..

Cardiel, from Mexico (although they spoke with American accents!) was the best band on the pool stage today. They had a quite unique sound this duo of distorted nasty guitar sounds and a great female drummer.  They had great dynamics, a good mix of wild stuff. The pool was moshing and having an amazing time. The doom dub track they did was really cool and different.  We really liked them a lot. Our friend Eetu bought both their tapes.

Giobia is a psychedelic rock band from Italy that I have waited a long time to see.  They took too long to set up so their set was short and like the first band, he has no idea how to mix a band like this. There was no farfisa or space sounds at all at the first and I pointed it out and then they were all over the place. Either too loud or not at all. The guitar player was way too low the entire show. All bass and drums. He got the space voice right but nothing else. The female farfisa player, she also sang one song but the guitar player did most of the vocals. Please get rid of this guy. He ruined 2 of the 4 bands, who could have really impressed people if the sound was like it was supposed to be. Anyway, they were great and played one cover song and had a strange ending to the show with just the bass player and drummer grooving for like 4mins by themselves.

I had to get something to eat so I heard but only saw the last 30mins of Toundra (from Spain). This was quite good instrumental music with a bit of stoner mixed in. Great melodies and riffs. Very few guitar solos. IT was all about grooves and melody. The audience liked it and the main sound man for the main stage, he was totally into it.  He did not have to mix too many bands today as most had their own sound guys, except Sacri Monti, which I have to say was the worst sounding band today on the main stage. His ears were worn out.

Sacri Monti, was pretty fast to set up as Toundra, had played 65mins.  I love this band. Great and unique songs but when those nice guitars don’t cut through the sound, it just is not the same. There was almost no guitars or keyboards if you were out on the sides at all.  Apparently, they multitrack recorded the show for a possible live album. They played new and old songs as well as closing with an old Iron Claw cover song. This was one of my fave gigs today.

Windhand, a US female fronted doom rock band, I for some reason had managed to miss everytime they played at festivals (Roadburn, Heavy Days in Doomtown, etc..) but today I saw the entire set and was drawn in. The movies were great, the singer quite cool and the guitar player was playing some great doom but also cool solos. IT was a solid band.

Eyehategod, from New Orleans are so intense. This is just dirty, nasty, angry blackened music. Ugly… and powerful.  No other way to describe it. The audience really was packed it was the loudest band I can recall from the festival.  Some will like it and others now. I find it hard to get into but they are totally unique. The singer is quite the character!!

Om…. It had been some years since I seen the band and they have really drifted into a more experimental sound and less about the hypnosis. A  lot of short pieces as well which really surprised me. 4 mins songs???  The sound was so clear and amazing and what a fucking drummer. Wow.. About 2/3rds of the way through the show, the bass sound (perhaps hit the big muff) just became massive and they turned it up way louder. IT was quite cool to do that after this really clean and clear sound. They had their own soundman as well.  Cool show.

Set List: Gethsemane, State of Non-Return, Sinai,  Cremation Ghat I, Cremation Ghat II, Thebes, Meditation is the Practice of Death, Bhima's Theme

Domkraft from Sweden was the last act and as always, I had no energy to stay up to 01:30 to see them start. 

It was an amazing Sonic Blast despite the harsh weather on Wednesday and Thursday.  A lot more foreign people this year including about 25 or so from Denmark, which was great to see some old and new friends.  I had a great time.

What can they improve?? 

A new sound man for the pool

Less bass and drums and more guitars on the main stage. Sound guy is great but he needs to go to the sides and see what it sounds like. Guitar was still too low for many bands.

More bathrooms for the women. This is a must!

Empty the toilets everyday on the main stage. Huge flood of urine form the overflowing men’s bathrooms on Friday was just nasty and the whole merch area and womens bathroom are smelled really bad on Saturday. If it had been really hot, it would have been really horrible.

Better announcements about changes, etc.. just using the internet is not really good enough.  Unless you were checking the internet, you had no idea Stoned Jesus and Orange Goblin had switched or that they would or would not use the pool. There were no announcements on the PA. 

Great festival, congrats to Ricardo and his wife for doing an amazing job. Muito Obrigado.. 

Http://sonicblastmoledo.com