I Spy- Toca. da Raposa, Portugal Aug 21st, 2021

Andy Shades

Toca. da Raposa is a local camping site run by a lovely Belgian lady, Meike and they are usually sold out all summer long.  She likes to have live music a few times a month. Doctors of Space (my duo with Martin Weaver) were supposed to play there in March 2020 then covid fucked it all up. I asked about playing again and did not get a straight answer.  I think everyone is asking her to play there as it is one of the few places having some live music.

Anyway, there was a lot of people that I knew there and the band was set up on the patio area where they do pizzas on weds. Band was in a good mood and the sound was much better even though the left speaker was giving some distortion due to surges in the electricity (this is what I was told) and that was annoying.   

The band started about 20:30 and played one 45min set and took a break. I filmed one of the songs, about not believing science and what you are told about covid (see below).  A lot of Andy’s songs are political or ecological in nature and the music is pretty high energy except when they do into their lounge jazz mode and he plays the saxophone.  I wish the drummer was not so laid back all the time, it would push the music into a more rock direction if he played with more force.  Anyway, it was a good mix of funky, jazzy, rock songs, all originals.   People and kids were dancing and having a great time. A couple of locals came up and did some singing-rapping during a couple of instrumental parts. I had a really good time. 

Two locals who were singing, rapping a bit.

Intro Jazz jam

Andy had a briefcase with some of this releases, none of which I had ever seen.  He says he has made 12 albums under lots of different names, Us, Andy Shades, Fie Fi Foe and a few others.  I should have taken a picture of them.  Anyway, here is a video of one of the new songs as mentioned above.