Month: February 2020

words: Neno Costa (freely translated by Raquel Pinheiro); photos: Telma Mota.

RIDE returned to Porto for an expected performance at the Hard Club. More than promoting their latest album – This Is Not a Safe Place – the Oxford band decided for a kind of sampling concert, introducing themselves live to an audience that would have adopted them since the first incarnation, in the first half of the 90s. Someone, who will not have been present at Primavera Sound 2015, shouted: “I’ve been waiting for you 30 years, man”, to which a nice Mark Gardener (voice/guitar) replied “I hope it’s worth it”.

And the trip was worth it. Starting with Jump Jet to dye the air with contagious energy, opening a sound journey through a career that survived an eighteen-year break and resumed in 2014 with the same line-up.

In the room echoed songs like Leave All Behind (Going Blank Again, 1992), Lannoy Point (Weather Diaries, 2017) or Dreams Burn Down (Nowhere, 1990), performed without blemish and exuding freshness, underlining the melodic shoegaze paternity and simultaneously promising more interesting paths, as in the case of the theme Fifteen Minutes, from their latest album, interpreted by the voice of Andy Bell, in what would have been the best moment of a concert that, having not filled the house, filled the heart.

texto: Neno Costa; fotos: Telma Mota

Os RIDE regressaram ao Porto para uma esperada atuação no Hard Club. Mais do que promover o seu último trabalho – This Is Not a Safe Place – a banda de Oxford optou por uma espécie de concerto de degustação, dando-se a conhecer ao vivo para uma plateia que tê-los-ia adotado desde a primeira encarnação, na primeira metade dos anos 90. Alguém, que não terá estado presente no Primavera Sound de 2015, gritou: “I’ve been waiting for you 30 years, man”, ao que um Mark Gardener (voz/guitarra) simpático respondeu “I hope it’s worth it”.

E valeu a pena a viagem, começando com Jump Jet a tingir o ar com uma energia contagiante, inaugurando um percurso sonoro por uma carreira que sobreviveu a uma paragem de dezoito anos, retomada em 2014 com a mesma formação.

Na sala ecoaram temas como Leave All Behind (Going Blank Again, 1992), Lannoy Point (Weather Diaries, 2017) ou Dreams Burn Down (Nowhere, 1990), interpretadas sem mácula e transpirando frescura, sublinhando a paternidade shoegaze melódica e simultaneamente prometendo caminhos mais interessantes, como no caso do tema Fifteen Minutes, do seu último trabalho, interpretado pela voz de Andy Bell, naquele que terá sido o melhor momento de um concerto que, não tendo enchido a casa, encheu as medidas.

words & photos: Raquel Pinheiro

Portuguese band Cancro had the ungrateful task of opening for Fat White Family. Mostly, because of poor sound quality. For those, like myself, unfamiliar with them, it was hardly possible to access what they were playing. All I managed to come up with, was that they have a lot of energy and, at times, live, the vocals resembled Adolfo Luxúria Canibal of Mão Morta and Manel Cruz of Ornatos Violenta.

Then, come Londoners Fat White Family. The audience was there for them and, from the start, they were welcomed in a worshiping way. Anyone who knows Fat White Family is aware they have trailed the path of many a band. The ups, the downs, flirting with the abyss, if not nearly, or really, falling into it, firing members, re-hiring them and the rest of the litany of rock’n’roll.

From Autoneutron, the opening song to the finale with Tastes Good With That Money, it was an exhilarating thrill. If during the first three songs things seemed to float in a less raucous, speedy, danceable mode, a journey probably better enjoyed under mind altering substances. By Fringe Runner, Lias Saoudi did an impromptu dive into the audience, ending crashed on the floor.

He soon recovered, was helped back to the stage, seated there for a while, leaning closely to the audience that was loving every second of it. The party carried on. It didn’t took long for Lias to unbuttoned his shirt, picked a Guinness can and drank from it. As the evening went on, the music got more intense, turning Hard Club’s Sala 1 into a disco.

Lias also kept pouring fire to gasoline. Shirt, off, picking a whiskey, or was it bourbon, bottle and drinking from it. Fat White Family, particularly Lias, behave on stage in a way now nearly absent from rock’n’roll. Loud, misbehaved, in your face. How many bands still drink from beer cans and a hard liquor bottle on stage, whistle, at the same time, more than totally looking the part, being the part itself? Not many.

They may be tamer and, as Lias told All Thing Loud some months ago “managed to pull through and abyss of self-destruction”, but they remain off, insane, intense, raw and direct. Disney come, they left. The audience called and called for the band to return, some giving up. Until, after a good while, they returned, played Tastes Good With The Money finishing with a big bang.