Unifantastico Festival, Travancinha, Portugal June 7th, 2025

This was a lovely one day family festival with a ton of kids running and activities and workshops and contests and of course music!  4€ if you are a member of the unifant organisation or 8€ if not. 10€ a year to join so you could join and get in for 2€…. 

I arrived about 1430 and there were a lot of people roaming around. A guy named Emil had brought a bunch of drums for the drum circle that was supposed to start at 15. It started about 1530. Filipe (Idiotheque) was awesome and about 5 other drummers, male and female. I met a really cool guy from Finland, Pasi!  He is a guitar player but he also played some drums and percussion here. An older guy had an Oud, 7 string guitar and tried to play a bit but was drowned out by the drums so he switched to some Moroccan hand cymbals. It was fun..

Next was a workshop up in the dome or kids Olympics games and face painting, etc.. Lots of stuff going on.   I was there for the social interaction and to hear some live music. 

Ball Zee, a UK and world Beatbox champion performed but also gave a little workshop showing us how he made some of these amazing sounds. He was mindblowing. I had never seen anyone make such authentic bass and percussion and other techno like music with only his mouth. Wow..  Blew me away..  He showed us how he made these sounds and then a strong or small kids gave it a try. Most were not any good but at least they gave it a go!!  Fun..

Nick and Issac (they had recorded some songs in my studio), gave their debut live performance and played 5 songs (3 of Issacs, 2 of Nicks). They were nervous and it was not perfect but sounded great. Their voices really work well together and they both play acoustic guitars. I think Nick should play acoustic bass that would work better.  On Issacs songs, he is mainly playing a similar chord variation and could add more with a bass.  It was great. I loved it…

Lisa Oribasi (partner of Ball Zee), played a solo acoustic/electric guitar set and Ball Zee added some drum like parts and other sound effects on the last 3 songs (all on the electric guitar).  She did mostly originals and had a wonderful voice.  Her cover of Toes by Glass Animals was the best song though…  Her first few originals were great. She played a new one Oscillation but it was the weakest song of the set..  Very nice guitar playing as well. Lovely..

https://lisaoribasi.bandcamp.com/album/red-earth

After this started the psy trance DJs so I headed home. It was a lovely day and awesome small festival.. Met many friends and made some new ones as well.  The DJs that played later are listed below.

Strangeiro, Itsan, Kobiko, Yoka