Casa da Música – Mondo Bizarre Magazine

December 12, 2025December 12, 2025 Mondo Bizarre Magazine Concert Reviews, Concerts

Noiserv, Casa da Música, 06.12.2025.

words: Paulo Carmona (freely translated by Raquel Pinheiro); photos: Nuno Lopes

Noiserv is a brilliant project, conceived by a brilliant artist gifted with an unusual, multifaceted creative capacity.

David Santos, the driving force and sole member of the project, is a talented multi-instrumentalist who manages to capture an audience’s full attention, despite barely being able to move, far too occupied playing instruments, recording, sequencing, and performing all at once, offering his audience live music that almost always grows in dynamic range until it reaches its melodic peak.

Sala Suggia of Casa da Música, though not sold out, was very respectably filled to welcome Noiserv, and David delivered exactly what was expected, or even more.

The concert revolved around his new album, 7305, the artist’s fifth full-length record. Another remarkable work whose spacious, contemplative sound carries us into landscapes with the atmosphere of a northern lights sky.

All one had to do was close one’s eyes and let the sound take us anywhere. Long Journey and Resumidamente opened the way for older pieces such as The Sad Story Of a Little Town and Don’t Say Hi, If You Don’t Have Time For A Nice Goodbye. The set list moved fluidly between tracks from the new album and selections from earlier periods.

Special note must go to A Self-Conversation Is To Loud For An Empty Room, singular and unsettling in its beauty, performed entirely on acoustic guitar.

Noiserv also presented tracks featuring collaborations with A Garota Não (Cátia Oliveira) and Milhanas, the latter appearing onstage to perform A Casa das Rodas Quadradas, where their two voices intertwined in perfect synergy. The staging and lighting were superb, fully worthy of that iconic Porto hall.

It was a warm, celebratory evening, not least because David is an excellent storyteller with a wonderful sense of humour. We all left happy.

July 17, 2025August 26, 2025 Mondo Bizarre Magazine Concert Reviews, Concerts

Jim Jarmusch & Jozef van Wissen, Casa da Música, Porto, 13/07/2025.

words: Marcos Leal (edited by Raquel Pinheiro); photos: Telma Mota

Jim Jarmusch, the independent filmmaker behind iconic cinematic works with the soul of a musician, and Jozef van Wissem, the maestro of the lute, performed a concert that felt like it had drifted out of a somber yet beautiful dream.

With tracks like The Unclouded Day and Concerning Celestial Hierarchy, the concert opened as a kind of secular meditation, where van Wissem’s lute chords engaged in a delicate conversation with Jarmusch’s textured guitar layers.

The soundscape was meditative, with van Wissem’s fingerpicking bordering on hypnotic, and Jarmusch’s slow, dense guitar seeming suspended in time, adding waves of reverb and feedback to the folk serenity of the lute.

Their chemistry was defined by minimalism and transcendence: few notes, vast space, and a deeply cinematic aura. Tracks like The Unclouded Day and Only Lovers Left Alive pulled the audience into a world where the soundtrack itself was the lead character.

But the most surprising moment came during the encore.After a performance drenched in introspection, the two returned to the stage and, without warning, standing tall with guitars raised, launched into a track driven by an electronic beat—more pulsating, more visceral, almost danceable.

The audience stirred, though still somewhat restrained by the mood shaped earlier. It felt as if they had tugged us back to Earth, just to prove that even masters of silence know how to erupt in sound when they choose to.

April 4, 2025April 10, 2025 Mondo Bizarre Magazine Concert Reviews, Concerts

The Legendary Tigerman, Casa da Música, 01.04.2025

words: Paulo Carmona (edited by Raquel Pinheiro); photos: Marcos Leal

A gentleman is always a gentleman, and rock’n’roll is no exception.The Legendary Tigerman, Paulo Furtado’s pseudonym, is a well of talent. He is a performance artist par excellence and has the ability to surpass himself. We see it again and again, but we always expect something magical to happen. And it did!

An almost sold out Sala Suggia, dressed up to welcome the hottest rocker Portugal and his much-cherished women from Femina, on the 15th anniversary of the iconic album. A memorable evening that moved me to the limits of the most insolent glamour of my youth. This wonderful ability of rock’n’roll never ceases to seduce and amaze.

Phoebe Killdeer, Maria de Medeiros, Rita Red Shoes, Claudia Efe and her partner – Sara Badalo – brought the intended charm and sensuality only within the reach of the Ladies of rock.Helena Coelho, who will be the mother of Paulo’s child in a few months, was also called to the stage to perform Summertime, alongside Ray.

The songs of Femina were played in full with an enviable technical rigor, with adjustments here and there. There was still room left for songs such as Keep it Burning, New Love and Ghost Rider, from the album Zeitgeist (2023).

April Fools’ Day was rammed by the truth of rock’n’roll, which continues to be the fountain of youth for many like Paulo Furtado.The bar was risen again. This year is promising!

April 3, 2025April 4, 2025 Mondo Bizarre Magazine Concert Reviews, Concerts

Mão Morta, Casa da Música, Porto, 30.03.2025

words: Marcos Leal (edited by Raquel Pinheiro); photos: Telma Mota

“Good evening. Welcome to the spectrum of fascism” – This is how Adolfo Luxúria Canibal greeted the audience at Casa da Música, after several songs from Viva La Muerte, their new conceptual nine songs album being performed.

Adolfo, the band, and male choir were dressed as if part of a revolutionary movement. Adolfo, with an assertive stance, standing on a platform, gestured, and, with his deep, hoarse voice, recited the songs’ lyrics like a speech, akin to a political rally.

It was, undoubtedly, a highly political concert. That is not new for Mão Morta, but not in the fashion of Viva La Muerte. In reality we live in, with, the rise of far-right movements, and the establishment of oligarchies and totalitarian regimes. With Viva La Muerte Mão Morta reaffirm themselves even more as a band of political and social intervention.

The band perfectly reproduced the stylistic variations of the album, ranging from the folk/jazz influences of Liberdade to the doom-like tones of Pensamento Único. Between songs, various recordings of thinkers, philosophers, and revolutionaries, such as Tim Leary and Angela Davis, further emphasized the political context of the show.

The concert followed the album’s sequence, opening with Deus Pátria Autoridade with its choral voices, and closing with Viva La Muerte!, the title track. Thus, the finale echoed with the sentence “Ninguém nasceu para ser servil e morrer” (“Nobody was born to be servile and die”)repeated until the last chord—a final message to take home and into life.

Viva La Muerte:
01: Deus Pátria Autoridade
02: Corre Corre Corre
03: É Proibido
04: Ressentidos e Ressabiados
05: A Liberdade
06: Pensamento Único
07: Líder Povo Nação
08: Ratoeira Bélica
09: Viva La Muerte!

Mão Morta are:
Adolfo Luxúria Canibal (vocals)
Miguel Pedro (drums, electronics)
Antonio Rafael (keyboards, electronics)
Vasco Vaz (guitar)
Ruca Lacerda (guitar, percussion, drums)
Rui Leal (bass, double bass)

Choir:
Fernando Pinheiro (conductor)
Jorge Barata
Lucas Lopes
Paulo Santos Silva
Tiago Regueiras

February 6, 2025February 8, 2025 Mondo Bizarre Magazine Concert Reviews, Concerts

Calexico Trio,Casa da Música, Porto, 04.02.2025

Spring Came Earlier

words: Paulo Carmona (edited by Raquel Pinheiro); photos: Sara Oliveira

Spring came earlier. It was not announced. It arrived and that was it.

How good it was to be at Casa da Música, in the immense filled Suggia room to savour Calexico. If there is a band that can transmit the warmth, sun, and swing of a spring night, even from within a room, in the middle of winter, it’s Calexico. Joy and well-being was a constant throughout the concert. Joey Burns was at his best, and the result was a perfect interaction between band and audience. Believe it or not, there was dialogue and direct translation mode singing during My Love Don’t Leave Me Now. It was cute and very funny to watch.

The band created and conceived by Joey Burns and John Convertino, came with Martin Wenk – trumpet, guitar, vocals, occasionally harmonica, an excellent multi-instrumentalist musician, super competent and very relaxed. As for Joey & John, is it even worthy mentioning? Everything that comes from them is always magical and infinitely majestic. A symbiosis, a synergy of talents.

Calexico opened with Don Quixote and Gypsi’s Curse, Epic and Glimpse and went around through alleys and melodic paths where styles ranging from folk to rock’n’roll intersect.Joey Burns continues to be an affable and friendly communicator. A born and very experienced entertainer. As always accompanied by his folk guitar called Amália Rodrigues.

Spring came earlier.

January 21, 2025February 5, 2025 Mondo Bizarre Magazine Concerts of the Year, Raquel Pinheiro, Records of the Year

Best of 2024

My best of 2024 are records, concerts, a book and an exhibition that filled my soul, touched me, or left a strong impression. Art forms that early this year still resonate, and remain close to my heart.

In late April 2024 I wrote an essay with Deep Emotions, a single from Good Grief, Bernard Butler third solo album and his first in 25 years as starting point. It was my second essay for Mondo. Along with, earlier in 2024, the listening parties of Rafael Toral’s Spectral Evolution it was the beginning of marvels, emotional perils and tribulations, and new paths.

The albums by Rafael and Bernard are healing records. Basalto merges melancholia, drama, romanticism. Vini Reilly is a Record Store Day re-issue of the 1989 album by Durutti Column. If there is a musician, composer, guitarist that has been with me since I’m a kid and has an influence how I see, approach, the electric guitar, Vini Reilly is him. I become aware of Ned Swarbrick when Bernard made a shout-out for support acts, and I liked Ned’s music. His ep has been a constant since.

As the Universe would have it, in 2024 Bernard played in Portugal for the first time, solo or otherwise. It was an amazing concert. 2024 was also the year of Old Jerusalem’s last concert. Old Jerusalem and Francisco Silva, the man behind it, have been part of Mondo’s favourites for decades. Francisco also begun being part of mine, in a different capacity, in 2022 when we wrote our first song together. Old Jerusalem last concert was intimate, poignant, a gathering of friends.

Records:
Bernard Butler – Good Grief (355 Recordings)
Rafael Toral – Spectral Evolution (Moikai/Drag City Records)
Basalto – Blunt Knives (self-release)
The Durutti Column – Vini Reilly (rsd2024)
Ned Swarbrick – Michelangelo EP (self-release)

Concerts:
Bernard Butler – Casa da Música, Porto
Orquestra Barroca Casa da Música & Coro Casa da Música performing Messiah by Handel – Casa da Música, Porto
Basalto – Passos Manuel, Porto
Bill Mackay – Rivoli, Porto
Sleaford Mods – Casa da Música, Porto
Old Jerusalem – Socorro, Porto
Tindersticks – Casa da Música, Porto

Book:
Miranda July – All Fours (Riverhead Books)

Exhibition:
Cláudia Clemente – Plastic Bitch, Mira Fórum, Porto

November 21, 2024November 30, 2024 Mondo Bizarre Magazine Concert Reviews, Concerts

Bernard Butler, Casa da Música, Porto, 17.11.2024.

A Handful of Songs

words: Paulo Carmona (edited by Raquel Pinheiro); photos: Telma Mota

I knew that Bernard Butler was a guitar genius due to his creativity and originality.

I confess I didn’t knew he was such a communicator. He is very humorous, entertaining and truthful in his discourse, not even shying away from self-deprecation.

His pop rock is of a singular richness and his ease in transposing it on stage is, to say the least, appreciably comforting. I can feel colours from all shades of the rainbow in Butler’s songs, coated in intense, personal and introspective lyrics. It’s not hard to see yourself in one song or the other, and that’s why it’s easy to navigate his world.

In this concert at Casa da Música, Bernard’s first ever in Porto, he presented Good Grief, his new album in 25 years, gave us songs such as Deep Emotions and Pretty D, and obviously iconic songs from People Move On, such as My Domain, and the closing Not Alone.

From his collaborations with other artists he brought songs like Although (McAlmont & Butler) and Shallow The Water (Jessie Buckley & Bernard Butler).

A solo concert so intimate, just the man and his guitar(s), that you could talk to the musician and sip the stories from his Gibson ES-355, which, in his hands, almost speaks.

I was delighted by the riffs, sometimes intense, sometimes soft, but all of them imbued with charismatic melodies. Butler is a storyteller and a speaker of the sensations that come from those stories. What’s impressive is the way in which those same sensations fit, in a perfect symbiosis, with the dynamics of his songs. It’s a gift.

I think that’s all I needed to see and hear on a pre-Christmas Sunday evening. It was indeed well worth leaving the house for!

May 2, 2024May 2, 2024 Mondo Bizarre Magazine Concert Reviews, Concerts

Lloyd Cole, Casa da Música, Porto, 28.04.2024.

words: Paulo Carmona freely translated by Raquel Pinheiro); photos: Paulo Carmona

Lloyd Cole is one of those unique cases in which a man, a guitar and his voice manage to give an whole concert in which the audience does not fall into a dragged sleepleness apathy like. There are several factors for that: The first one is the voice to be in shape in the highs and lows and the knowledge of using breathing to achieve what is intended.

Another factor to have in consideration is the compentency is the playing of the electro-acoustic guitar. The rhythms, the freestyle, the intensity, the silences and the arpeggios. All very well played and pertinent to the flow of the songs. And the songs, of course.

When a song is well written, well harmonized and has a poem that tailor suits it because it is felt, loved and conceived since it naturally; with guitar and voice, or orchestra it will always be a great song. That was what, once more, Lloyd Cole offered us. Always nice and afectous, supported by is British humour, including about mid concert pause, explaining it is mandatory for guys his age, he was an excellent entertainer from beginning to end.

The menu included more introspective songs such as Like Lovers Do, My Other Life, 2 CV, Today I’m Not So Sure, The Afterlife, The Idiot, Butterfly and more iconic and uplifted songs like Are You Ready To Be Heartbroken, Jennifer She Said, Brand New Friend, Perfect Skin and Undressed. On the much demanded and thanked encore Lost Weekend and Forest Fire were played.

On my way home, on the aftermath, I was thinking a cup of hot tea and sweet, sweet biscuits would be right the thing.

November 24, 2023December 6, 2023 Mondo Bizarre Magazine Concert Reviews, Concerts

Nadine Khouri | John Grant, Casa da Música, Porto, 22.11.2023. – Misty Fest.

Nadine Khouri © Mondo Bizarre Magazine/Cláudia Lopes

words: Marcos Leal (edited and freely translated by Raquel Pinheiro); photos: Cláudia Lopes

Anglo-Libsnese Nadine Khouri is presenting her latest album, Another Life (produced by John Parish). She comes on stage with a drummer and a keyboardist and picks up her red guitar, before strumming the first chords. Attention is immediately called to her warm, silly voice, inspiring Lebanon deserted landscapes.

The sound draws towards David Lynch and Wim Wenders imagetic scenaries. It is worthy to mention Keep On Pushing These Walls, a song dedicated to Lhasa De Sela, Keep On Pushing These Walls, and another to those that had to live in exile. Her is music, alternative exotic cinematografic, makes us go on a roadtrip without leaving our seat.

John Grant © Mondo Bizarre Magazine/Cláudia Lopes

It is John Grant’s time now., also in a redux emsemble: John, in the piano, and a keyboardist-back vocalist. When he starts to play what stands out is his strong voice and it’s tone. What sets him apart is the quality of his lyrics in which, satirically, he approaches human relationships, homosexuality, social issues. For the joy of the his fans, several songs from the debut album, Queen of Denmark, were played. John says he feels comfortable playing those because certain issues remain as corrent. Of notice was also the excellent piano solo by his pianist-keyboardist. One song was left to be played on the encore. The only weirdness in a beautiful performance was a member of the audience that insisted on speaking to John Grant and clap before the end of each song.

November 23, 2023November 28, 2023 Mondo Bizarre Magazine Concert Reviews, Concerts

Alan Sparhawk (Low) | Lambchop – Misty Fest, Casa da Música, Porto, 21.11.2023.

Alan Sparhawk © Mondo Bizarre Magazine/Marcos Leal

words: Marcos Leal (edited and freely translated by Raquel Pinheiro); photos: Marcos Leal

Alan Sparhawk returns a year after the death of Mimi Parker, his life and musical companion. He is accompanied by three young musicians, one of them his son, on bass, the others bring a drummer and a banjo player., instruments that are characteristic of Alan Sparhawk’s music. The concery start quietly, but quickly the harshness of distortion and feedbacks of the lyrically heavier lyrics, in which Alan seemed to transmit and exorcize darker feelings arriveded. It was a concert with gruge roughness and indie-folk sweetness that received a good clapping at the end.

Lambchop © Mondo Bizarre Magazine/Marcos Leal

As for Lambchop presented a redux version. Kurt Wagner (vocals) and a pianist. A change that seemed to caught a few people by surprise. As the piano first notes were played, Kurt gestured along the music, like a conductor. Placing himself on the mic stand, his first vocals seemed to had caused a shift on the room. Owning a strong, deep voice, he sang song from the latest album, word by word with captivating mastery and presence, contracting with the simplicity of the production design. The lights didn’t even changed colour.

The minimalist approach may had not been for everyone. Those that stayed enjoyed Kurt’s and his pianist astistic quality until the end. They were irreproachandle and deserved the generous clappung before bed, as Kurt said they would go to sleep right after the encore.

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