Concert Photography – Mondo Bizarre Magazine

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!

November 19, 2024November 21, 2024 Mondo Bizarre Magazine Concert Reviews, Concerts

Temples, Hard Club, Porto, 14.11.2024.

Lost in translation. Definitely.

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

Temples are a band of dreams. The magic feeling is constant throughout the band’s performance. Atmospherically very rich and diverse in the structure of their songs, they take us to rest in meadows that stretch far as the eye can see. An immensity of nostalgia and divine emotions that, in fact, can only be reached in temples of sound in which music is the supreme divinity.

You almost feel a cool breeze on your skin that gives you goose bumps, a constant throughout the concert. In Move With the Seasons I almost levitated, in The Guesser I dreamt and in Fragment’s Light I almost cried. What more could I ask for?

As the songs flowed, bodies moved to the rhythm of the band’s sound, applause was effusive and appropriate for the marvellous setting. The band felt that the audience was with them and James Bagshaw, the band’s singer, ended up saying that this was thee crowd of the tour. I bet it was.

I dare say that Temples are one of the best bands of the last 20 years, for its originality and musical creativity, and that Sun Structures is a masterpiece of musical art.Outside, the city is perfectly suited to what was experienced and witnessed indoors. Perhaps because its the city of temples. I still feel it all very much alive and present in me. Thank you, James, Tom, Adam and Rens. Don’t make us wait another 10 years for your return to Portugal and, in particular, to Porto.

September 17, 2024September 24, 2024 Mondo Bizarre Magazine Concert Reviews, Concerts

Bill MacKay, Understage – Rivoli, Porto, 13.09.2024.

Bill MacKay @ Rivoli © Raquel Pinheiro

Guitar Poetry

words & video by Raquel Pinheiro; photos: João Octávio Peixoto/TMP

To say Bill MacKay’s concert was extraordinary, would be underwhelming. Sublime is a better word. Transcendental, another good one. Those words still don’t do justice to the music, guitar, playing, singing. In fact, being there is the only thing that would do it justice.

Beauty, poetry spoken with an electric guitar as I’ve seldom heard it. Bill sings too, and tells little stories about the songs, however, his visual, sound, poetic mastery of the guitar is the domain of few.

The songs from MacKay’s latest album Locus Land (by the way it’s Terra do Gafanhoto, Bill 🙂 ) gain a different, spiritual, otherworldly dimension live. They become a time within time. A time of gentleness, until the final piece served: Arcadia. Bill stood up to play Arcadia in full, distortion mode adding a sharp dramatic contrast to the tone of the concert.

Bill MacKay @ Rivoli © Raquel Pinheiro

August 8, 2024August 23, 2024 Mondo Bizarre Magazine Festivals, Photologs

Jazz Em Agosto 2024 photolog

Helena Espvall © Petra Cvelbar/Jazz Em Agosto 2024

Once more we are showcasing a photographic overview of our friend Petra Cvelbar beautiful photo coverage of Jazz em Agosto that is held at Gulbenkian in Lisboa and celebrates its 40th anniversary. Go to our Instagram for a more detailed photo overview of Jazz em Agosto 2024

July 2, 2024July 9, 2024 Mondo Bizarre Magazine Concert Reviews, Concerts

Jesus the Snake | All Them Witches, Hard Club, Porto, 24.06.2024.

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

Jesus the Snake, a band from Vizela, ofereced a serene and contemplative cradle with their spacial pinkfloydesque melodies. Only the dense riffs of the last track broke the immersive state and awoke the audience for what was to follow.

When All Them Witches turn arrived the change of atmosphere in the room was palpable. The audience in constant uproar and ecstasy, at times contrasting with the here and there immersive melodies of the band. However, they also own beating riffs. All Them Witches manage to transport the listener to a road movie in which we travel through prairies, and the typical dinners and motels of American landscapes.

The band played a setlist that reviewed several of their tracks such as the opener See You Next Fall, When God Comes Back, Alabaster, The Marriage of Coyote Woman and after effusive aplaus, on the encore, Bulls.In short, it was a happy return over here and a great welcome for All Them Witches.

June 18, 2024June 22, 2024 Mondo Bizarre Magazine Concert Reviews, Concerts

Sprints, Mouco, Porto, 15.06.2024.

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

I confess I’ve spend most of my life seeings attempts at burying rock-‘n’-roll for the most varied reasons and dantesc like premonitions. As if a chronicle of an announced demise.

It is bands like Sprints that show up giving the finger to those morbid mistrustfuls, holding a fluffy white bunny passport.What happened Saturday at Mouco was epic.

They arrived, they saw, they conquered. With a very energetic and lascivious garage/stoner punk rock this young band from Dublin grabbed the audience from the beginning to the end of the concert. No truces given drawing the audience to get involved with the band at song, at every charge.

Energetic and irreverent, well instrumentally sustained with drums supported (Jack Callan), bass and vocals (Sam McCann) guitar (Colm O’Reilly) and Karla Chubb (main vocals, guitar) doing everything else. Karla has an overwhelming power that leaves no one indifferent.

The setlist played was everything the Sprints have to give and believe it is a lot. Heavy, Adore, Cathedral, Delia, Shadow and Letter and others, were part of the party that ended with Karla in a happy mosh among the audience.

I left belly filled and only felt like singing to myself: I know, it’s only rock’n’roll, but I like it, I like it… yes I do! How not to?

April 26, 2024 Mondo Bizarre Magazine Concert Reviews, Concerts

Kristin Hersh, Auditório Francisco de Assis, Porto, 21.04.2024.

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

The tracery of Sparky (Hips and Makers, 1994) filled the wideness of the stage until Kristin Hersh’s voice filled the room with Eyeshine (Clear Pound Road, 2023) casting out ghosts that seemed to threaten Throwing Muses’muse at every turn.

Lady of lyrics tinted by experience and personal conflicts, braided with a pop folk sound under a harsh vocal sky Kristin Hersh and her acoustic guitar run through thirty years of career, including her time with Throwing Muses, in an intimate, mature, flowing performance in choices such as Your Ghost (Hips and Makers, 1994), Kay Catherine (Throwing Muses, 2020), Your Dirty Answer (Sonny Border Blue, 2001) or Ms Haha from her latest album.

It would have been wonderful to prolong this golden moment of the musical calendary, electrically wrapped with The Cuckoo (Hips and Makers, 1994) and English folk song open to interpretations, cladled as a goodbye.

April 16, 2024April 25, 2024 Mondo Bizarre Magazine Concert Reviews, Concerts

Sereias | Sleaford Mods, Casa da Música, 13.04.2024.

Sereias © Mondo Bizarre Magazine/Daniela Tedim

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

Sereias opened the evening with their frantic, vocally agressive rock. Abundantly shouted in despair, among foul language, demands and political and social criticism. They’re very solid and original instrumentalists in the way they mix styles and impose tempos. But always very together. An interesting band, no doubt.

Sleaford Mods © Mondo Bizarre Magazine/Daniela Tedim

I could say punk bastards are back or that the good old fashioned rebels would have returned in na electro punk rap and spoken word version, but I will not do it, even because I just did it. I’ll center myself in what is worthy about British duo Sleaford Mods. Obviously punk’s stigma is present on the fast intense vocalizations of the sarcastic speech, at times comical, and electronic samples minimalism everyone. But, in reality, do Jason Williamson and Andrew Fearn Bing us or intend to put across?

To me, it seems they have a lot to say and to uncover not only Great Britain concerning, but regarding the world at large in its hypocrisy and aggressive capitalist economy. Sleaford Mods music is to be danced to, felt, grooved. It is also to be reflected upon and internalised. Although the communication channel is minimalist electronic music, their message is anything but minimalistic. In line with social and political criticism “in your face” bands like The Clash, Public Enemy, Rage Against, this duo shots towards their chosen targets with genuine haughtiness.

The concert at Casa da Música justified all that. Jason’s voice on his East Midlands Accent among psychedelic strobe lights, vociferações that resembled seagulls overing above any coastal town, his balancing water bottles on his head artist posture like a cocky rooster trying to moonwalk and footloose, tracks like TCR, BHS, and the cover of Pet Shop Boys’ West End Girls keep coming out entertaining the hordes attendees and Sleaford Mods fans.Oh Captain! My Captain! They follow us everywhere and I go west.

April 2, 2024April 2, 2024 Mondo Bizarre Magazine Concerts

Pop Dell’Arte, Hard Club, Porto, 29.03.2024.

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

On stage, more than showbiz, more than show off, give rock’n’roll truth. As it is in its essence. Unpretentious and genuine. That is what Pop Dell’Arte is. That is it, and it is very good.

Sonorously speaking it is complex in construction, structure, form. Bass, drums and guitar played by Zé Pedro Moura, Ricardo Martins and Paulo Monteiro are extremely competent performing the songs as well as on their own, leaving an impression with the daring passion the music flows to our senses. João Peste’s voice is what we were used to over decades. Intense and very charismatic. At times powerful and resounding, at times sarcastic, dragged, and insolent filled of an apparent juvenile innocence. Take note, apparent! Maybe that is why he and his companions can make Pop Dell’Arte’s music seem so fresh. Each concert is a celebration. An hymn to the band’s aesthetic conscience and its survival along its life spam.

This concert didn’t deviate from it, and that is good. It started with Star Wars and Em Creta, through Avanti Marinaio, Planet Lakroon, Panoptical Architecture for Empty Streets in a Silent City, Wil’n’Chic, Be Bop and Sonhos Pop, and, towards the end Freaky Dance and My Funny Ana Lana. A great celebration, no doubt.Is it me or this more thrilling, frantic, alternative as well as pop side of rock as its strongest expression in a time references were few, but, indisputably, remarkable.

March 19, 2024September 3, 2024 Mondo Bizarre Magazine Concert Reviews, Concerts

F.M. Einheit – Associação de Moradores da Bouça, Porto, 15.03.2024.

The Club Meets the Drill

words: Raquel Pinheiro; photos: Renato Cruz Santos/Cultura em Expansão We are at one of those places most would not associate with industrial music, Associação de Moradores da Bouça, a local residents society, founded in 1975. Through Porto’s City Hall programme Cultura em Expansão, Associação de Moradores da Bouça has been helding events, like diferent sorts of concerts, including more fringe ones.

There are too many of us gathered in the patio outside the concert room. Which goes to show that fringes can be relative. F.M. Einheit became known to if not all, most of us in attendance, when he was part of Einstürzende Neubauten, that he left in 1995.

The planned seated concert is turned into a stand up one in order for everyone to be able to attend. That changes things a little or the audience. In chairs, we would easily be able to see the images of the projections that accompanied F.M. Einheit’s demolitions, cracking, pouring of materials, playing a gigantic spring with a drill.

The video projections come with background sounds and beats. A mix of clubbing grooves, voices, mechanical, machinery noises. From where I stand for most of the concert, by the door and the mixing desk, it is not easy to see the images or, other than the playing of spring & drill, what is F.M.’s up to. I can hear sounds and see a glimpse of what looks like a workbench with a few things upon it. Wood plaques? Bricks? And what is FM pouring from a big bucket? Gravel? Whatever it is, it makes for an harrowing sound.

The evening will keep being filled with contrasts, dissonances, resonances, peculiar noises. And thee drill!

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