This is a site where I post reviews of CDs, DVDs, LPs, and concerts. I have been writing music reviews on and off since 1984. I ran a heavy metal fanzine from 1984-1988 called Metal Madness and have been a staff writer for Aural Innovations for many years. I have also contributed to Chrohinga Well (RIP), Bad Acid (RIP), Lowcut (RIP), Roadburn and a number of other zines as well. I recently moved to Portugal so please request the new address and do not send any music to Denmark anymore. Tak..
The LP features two long tracks while the CD features a shorter version of Track 1 but a very long extened version of track 2 (which is the one featuring J Mascus (Dinosaur Jr)!! What can I say, if you like jammed out stuff with lots of dynamics and intense noisy guitar then this is going to be for you!!!
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Overall, this is a very solid 3rd record and some might say the bands best. the drumming is perhaps more intense and the songs sorter and more focused (not sure I like that or not) but the whole band plays awesome with killer guitar throughout and groovy bass lines. One of the best PT bands on the stoner 70s rock scene at the moment..
I had just come back from Spain and was really tired but really wanted to see and support the band on this first gig of the year. It was packed. Alex, the keyboard player for the band, he and his wife played a 35min set that just was not the right music for this evening and virtually no one really was paying attention. The volume was just way too low which did not help.
Idiotheque started with an solo acoustic number track by Adriana. It was not really the best way to start on this evening and then into Close your Eyes. Tom had shaved half his beard and half his head (not bald but really short). What a cool and great front man.. Anyway, the lights were cool, great decorations in the venue and cool costumes. The band take the music and show part very serious and that is great. The only thing lacking tonight was the sound. It was at times dreadful (the start) and at times passible but hardly great. No kick drum at all the whole night, so the groove really lacked at times. cymbals and horns were really sharp sounding. Anyway, the band was one on fire and really were tight. A bit too tight for me, I really wish they would give solo parts to the horn players, and keyboard players, not only Dinis, the guitarist, who I think had 4 solos all which were short and very uninspired, I felt. He is a great guitar player but you would never know it from these kind of awkward, not very interesting solos. Pity.. The band played most of what they were playing last year and one or two totally new songs besides the acoustic intro. The band ended with a high energy with Give me More and Space Age! Awesome band…
The set list: ?, Close your Eyes, ?, Mountain Man, Honey, ?, Todos Eguas, Give me More, Space Age
www.alpacaband-mn.bandcamp.com
It is 5€ if you are a member (12€) a year or 7€ if not. There were 12 people when I arrived and they were all having dinner and some had their kids with them. Mostly English people (I think). There was a big PT football match on TV so they did not expect many people, sadly.
Boris das Beiras started about 2020 and played about 10 short pieces of music in 45mins. His main instrument is an electric bouzouki guitar (Greek instrument). He had a table with a small keyboard that he made drums sound keyboard melodies and then he used a guitar pedal looper and then played guitar over the top. He also used a cassette player and mixed in spoken word or used it just to add some effected sounds to the mix. He also had a Roland SH201 that only used very briefly 3-4 times during the set to add some bass or synth arpeggios. He also occasionally sang using some strange octave pitch pedal that made his voice very strange. Very unique!!! I enjoyed it...
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| Boris das Beiras |
And If? was a performance art piece by the organiser of the show, Bernardo Chatillion. This was very special. He had a microphone and said and did weird stuff and then he played something thru the PA and was crawling around, writhing about or dancing around the room while we all stood in a circle around him. Very special and it takes a lot of confidence to do this. Kudos to Bernardo. This was very creative and strange but everyone was smiling and into it except the kids who thought this guy is really weird and strange!!!
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.
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.
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!
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.
Rolf 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.
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!!
