This was the first time I was able to get a ticket to this event!! It was sold out last year by the time I figured out how to get a ticket and when they went on sale as their web site is never updated and they only use Instagram and Facebook. Now I know..
Anyway, it is 35mins from my house to the venue, not too bad a drive. I arrived about 1530 and met Andrei and Vladimir and their friend (the later two I met at the festival last year when I came to just see the place and attend the music discussion at the library with Steve Hogwarth and David Cross and some other musicians.
The first act was a solo woman from the US named
Courtney Swain, this was apparently the 3rd time she has performed at the festival. She did 4-5 numbers with some pedals, loopers, and other devices that she triggered, looped her voice and sang over the top with some beats. She was very good and clever but it was just all a bit too mainstream radio like music (just stranger). She then switched to the grand piano. Large lady with a great powerful voice. She was for sure not Prog, closer to Pop but I guess you would call it Art Rock. Not my thing. I guess Lauri Anderson would be an inspiration here…
30min break and then Blank Manuscript, a quartet from Austria was next. The organ, keyboard player was the main lead singer and soloist and awesome. They only played 5 songs in 75mins, really cool long tracks with lots of different parts. The lead guitar player when he soloed was part David Gilmour and part Steve Rothery! Very good band. They played a couple of songs from their first album at the end of the set. They got an encore even though we were over time.
Now there is a for 2hrs and 45mins with no music. They close the venue and open it again at 21! I think this is excessively long break and tomorrow no music for 3. 5 hrs!!!
At 2130, next up was a jazz-classical music duo
Rita Maria and Filipe Raposa. Very talented musicians and what a voice but I was tired and an hr of piano jazz was not really what I wanted to hear. This also was not Prog at all. They are total pros and amazing musicians. I understand that this is a very expensive festival to put on and they need some simple solo or duo acts that do not cost a huge amount to fill in the schedule. Quality music.
Finally, only about 15mins late, the
Monika Roscher Bigband hit the stage. She looked stunning as the conductor and guitar player and this 18 member (13 horn players, several also played flute and one didgeridoo) band. What really cool songs and she introduced the stories for most all the songs. The 2nd one was a really long one about Witches and was super cool. I was really captivated. In fact most of the songs in the set came from her album, Witchy Activities And The Maple Death. Firebird, 8 Princesses, Taste of the Apocalypse. Amazing 90min concert just a pity you could not hear here guitar playing at all. She played a lot of great air guitar though!! Ended about 00:45 and I was very tired. I wanted to meet them and buy the CD but I still had another 35min drive home. Very fun first day..
I also hung out and spoke with half the band,
Oiapok from France in the long break. They play tomorrow.
Day 2
Damn, I was tired today and in a hurry having to stop at the post office and only got a 45min nap. I arrived 10mins before Mad Fellaz (Italy). I only heard a bit of these guys and in the end I really liked them but the drummer when he got intense, which was nearly every song, he just destroyed the sound and he drowned everything out and you could not hear the band. Pity the soundman was not really on top of it. Snare was louder than the rest of the band!!! Crazy fucked up.. they were a 7 piece band (2 guitar, 2 synths, bass, drums and female singer). They started and ended the show with instrumental songs. Band bass player was really funky but the band was not particularly which made for some interesting contrasts. The female singer, wow.. She was amazing and really charismatic. It was mostly like 80s Jazz fusion stuff but well done.
Oiapok (France), were next and wow. They blew me away. What an awesome band but difficult material as they all had sheet music!! They opened with a very Frank Zappa inspired track and then headed off in their own direction. What a unique line up of instruments: Harp, Zylophone, Marimba, trombone, trumpet, bass, drums, guitar and female singer. They built up into some really cool intense parts that got the bass player off his chair (he composes all the music) and they rocked. I wish the guitar player would have had a bigger role some how. He only did one guitar solo and the rest of the time seem to be following the notes of either the horn players or marimba, lesser the harp. Maybe it would become too messy if he had his own parts?? He could for sure play more solos. Music was great and very composed though, not much room for improv. Amazing performance. I think for many this was going to be hard to top!
Now, there was a fucking 3hr break with nothing going on. I went to eat with Samuel (Portuguese music fan, who I had met at other festivals, super nice) and a guy named Rod, who came over from the USA. We had a nice dinner and chat about music. All very nice and interesting people.
Motyk (Belgium) were a 5 piece (two violins, percussion-drums, acoustic guitars and standup bass) band. Some of the members had played this festival before in different band configurations. They played a sort of world music inspired by all kinds of ancient music. Very good and interesting tracks but sadly, I was so tired I did not really enjoy it as much as I could have. They played much shorter songs compared to the other bands. The highlight of the gig though was the amazing djembe solo. Wow. I was just blown away and captivated by that. The amazing sounds and textures he got out of the drum was incredible. The encore was the highlight for the Mexican guitarist, Pablo, where he really shinned. Great band but they played 20mins over so now it was going to be really late and I was so tired.
Wobbler (Norway), who played here some years ago and has not had a new album since 2020, were next. I think people had high expectations for this heavy prog band. They were damn good but sadly did not play or even hint about having a new material. The lead singer also played some acoustic and electric guitar and he was complimented by bass, drums, lead guitar, violin and the massive keyboard set up (real mellotron, Fender Rhodes, Mini moog and Hammond). Very dynamic and interesting music with lots of guitar and organ solos but few violin spots. She mostly just complimented the rest in a good way but was hard to hear at times. They were at least 2x louder than any of the other bands, Finally we got some volume. Some thought it was too loud but it helped to keep me awake and the drums from the stage did not drown out the band! Great stuff. They played 85mins and no encore as it was already over time by nearly 30mins. Excellent day of music.
Day 3Rolf Van Meurs (Holland) was totally amazing and captivating. Wow.. He is a classical acoustic guitar player but does very unique cover versions of songs. This I did not know but wow. His set was amazing and included songs by Supertramp, Queen, Deep Purple (Child in Time), and 4 by Pink Floyd (Hey You, Shine on you Crazy Diamond, High Hopes?, and one more from the Wall. He was great.. Very original in the way he not only played the guitar part but bass and vocal parts as well. Clever. Awesome.. I spoke to him afterwards and he was so friendly.
Siril Malmedal Hauge & Ketil Mulelid (Norway), are a duo from Norway and were totally different from the very traditional piano jazz of the first day. Siril, was a great singer in the singer-songwriter-pop vein but Ketil. he was from another planet! He played all those melodic parts that fit the vocal melody but added loads of interesting and complex notes in and around the melody in a very clever way. Normally, I would have got very bored with just piano and pop oriented vocal. He also would reach into the piano like on the 3rd number, Craze, and made the piano sound like a stand up bass. He did it again in the middle of the piano on another song and it sounded like acoustic guitar, nearly.. Very clever player. I was surprised… They played a Randy Newman song, Molly Drake (Nick Drake´s mom) and one more but the rest where their own songs.
Poil Ueda (France-Japan) is a very strange and interesting collaboration between traditional Japanese music, story telling and far out Prog (a bit Crimson like at times). Sadly, the sound was just awful most just bass and drums, and a bit of her voice. We could hardly hear the guitar and keyboard at all. I had to go to the sound man 2x and it improved a lot after the 2nd time but still very poor job and ruined the show as you could not appreciate the unique chemistry and music at all. Sad.. Nothing more to say.. They should have ben the highlight of the day.
Pete Roth Trio (UK) is a new project featuring Bill Bruford on drums. I had not seen him play since the YES- Union tour so this was fun. He is so good. What a technique. As for the music, the players are all awesome and it was mixture of covers and originals. It was pretty standard jazz guitar trio stuff with a few bass solos and drum solos and nice guitar work from Pete. He was also funny when he spoke to the audience. A very nice 65mins set with great sound.
Richard Thompson (UK) was the closer but I was too tried to stay and see him after 3 late nights in a row. I hope that he was good..
Day 4
Rolf van Meurs was doing a set of classical guitar in the town church at 1630 but I decided to rest and only come for the two bands in the evening. It has been raining all day. I arrived about 1730. Met with Roy, he said that Rolf¨s set in the church was really good and all classical guitar.
Zopp (UK), what can I say, these guys were a class act and fantastic. One of my fave acts of the entire festival for sure. A bit of a pity we struggled to hear the guitar but the rest sounded great. Bass and drums still dominant though. They remind me of Camel, when they played more uptempo stuff. Very good band with drums, keys, guitar, bass, and sax. There set was the same as the live CD except two new songs!
Set List (from the bass player): You, Before the Light, Uppmärksamhet, Endless Decrees, The Living Man, V, Toxcicity
Big Big Train (UK), were the main headliner for the festival and had their full show. They were very happy to be playing in Portugal for the first time and this was the last show of their tour. He also mentioned that last week they recorded a new album. I was very impressed with the musicians in this band as everyone is a multi-instrumentalist and most played keyboards at some point and some string instrument. The lead singer, he played acoustic, electric guitar, keys and even drums!! Impressive, Musically, they had some really great pieces but others that are just too close to pop music to me with la la la singalongs, etc.. They are trying to bring complex proggy music to the mainstream and seem to be doing well but I am more of prog purists and hate pop or mainstream music, with the catchy singalongs and chorus.. Anyway, they played the Last King of England, which is one of the only songs I had heard by this band and I loved that. My normal seat was 5th row on the hard right but there were a lot of seats free in the middle so I moved over to the 4th row middle but had to leave there after 2nd or 3rd song as when the band got loud, you could not hear the guitar at all. Nothing.. so I moved to the back and the sound was much better. The bass player used these MOOG bass pedals and that was very intense low end that must mudded up the sound, very badly in the front, not so bad in the back. Anyway. over all a great performance and they are amazing players and people enjoyed it a lot.
This was an amazing music event. It was not a pure prog festival which I think is good. A lot of diverse and all amazing acts (except one). It runs great and sure some things could improve (lower drums for the rock bands), I was on the right side and the sound is not good on the sides in this venue. Drums, bass are too intense and vocals too low usually. Not for all bands, some bands sounded great (usually had their own sound people). I spoke to some people next to me and they sit in the same place every year more or less here on the right side row 4-6 and normally all the bands sound great so something was very different with sound system or people this year. They were also very disappointed. If you can not make good sound on the sides, do not sell the tickets!!
A few comments, a shorter break for dinner so the shows end an hr earlier for those travelling and who are not night people. They could update the web site when tickets go on sale and not just 2 days before the festival when the show is already sold out!.. Look forward to next year!!
https://www.gaudela.net/gar/index-en.html
