3. Octa Push
Octa Push was formally introduced back in 2008 when Conspira – a pioneer of electronic music in Portugal – challenged the two brothers to use their talent and take it to the stage. They reserved the moment to present the world with their latest album, Língua (2016). This is a record that mixes Portuguese roots and African urban culture and counts with collaborations with Cátia Sá (who stepped up on stage 3 times and made the crowd go wild), Cachupa Psicadélica (who was also present) and Maria João.
It was 10:20 p.m. when the two brothers took the stage and made everyone dance until they dropped. Their African-influenced beats and super energized performance was contagious, leaving no one indifferent to their show. Even the shyer ones were encouraged to help end the concert in a big party. “Menino pega menina, menina pega menino, menino pega menino ou menina pega menina, isso não interessa – queremos é que dancem!” (“boy picks girl, girl picks boy, boy picks boy or girl picks girl, it doesn’t matter – we just want you to dance!) was the way Octa Push put an end their hour in Paredes de Coura, in one hell of a party.
Cátia Sá was one of their big attractions that night as she joined the two brothers to sing for Barbara, Língua and Fogo (all three songs taken from their album Língua). The second people realised that that little curly shadow in the backstage was Cátia, everyone lost it and started chanting for her. Another pleasant surprise was the presence of Cachupa who sang for Gaia Cosmica.
What we absolutely loved about this performance was the simplicity in which they came, gave all they got and went. Octa Push kept their humbled and deeply grateful attitude while giving one of the most danceable and generally happy show.
2. Kate Tempest
On the first day of one of the biggest music festivals for indie (and not so indie) bands in Portugal, we had the utmost pleasure of receiving Kate Tempest. The professor, poet, playwright and rapper gave us one of the best performances of the festival. She made herself the focal point right since her foot first stepped on that stage. Everyone knew she was about to instruct words of wisdom and activism. The energy she alone brought to that night was incredible and her band just made everything greater. Every sound, every feeling and every word were amplified times 1000. And playing at 2 a.m. made any different either.
Kate is the antithesis of the modern world, the voice of consciousness that we tend to not to want to hear. She is a machine of phrases that hurt, frantic stanzas that rhyme only in the conscience. Kate is brain music, modern hip hop of intervention, intervening about life, about habits, about injustices, about the little heroic little gestures of each day. And at Vodafone Paredes de Coura she was nothing short to a god. Omnipresent, omni-vocal, omni-conscious, omni-all. She was the whole world inside Paredes de Coura.
Kate played from the top to end of her last album Let Them Eat Chaos. She warned us her mind was set in taking us on a journey with her. Lets just say that anyone and everyone who was in the natural auditorium of Paredes de Coura was left amazed and convinced that in that moment there was nothing else in the world but that exact moment. Kate tempest, a storm of life. Phenomenal.
1. Benjamin Clementine
Well if Kate Tempest was a storm of life, it would have to take something out of this world to top her performance at Vodafone Paredes de Coura. Was the case with Benjamin Clementine. The London-born Paris-adopted singer who won the Mercury prize last year gave his 10th concert in Portugal in not much more than 3 years. Still we had never seen something like it before. Earlier that afternoon he told us in an exclusive listening of his upcoming album that all started from the notion that “we’re all aliens and need to realize that”. Well, we should say the concert really honored that premise.
Starting with two new songs By the Ports of Europe and God Save the Jungle, he easily convinced the crowd with hauntingly powerful, clear and profound vocals. Backed up by an also powerful choir and alternating between a heavy piano, drums and bass and an a stripped a Capella approach, he made every single person in the 27000 crowd linger and introspect about their own insecurities. Be it by singing about his own decisions and self-being (like in the songs from At Least For Now), or about bullies and what the world should be (like in new songs like Phantom of Aleppoville or Jupiter). Benjamin Clémentine sung for not much more than one hour, but it was like there was nothing else going on in the World. And if it was not enough to ask for his band to play it lower so he could hear the crowd on songs like London and Condolence, he even stop the entire thing (and lights out too) so he could build up a 27000 strong choir to sing “I’m sending my condolence I’m sending my condolence to fear. I’m sending my condolence, I’m sending my condolence to insecurities”.
What Benjamin Clémentine did at Vodafone Paredes de Coura was something extraordinary, as he not only provided an overwhelming listening experience creating his own planet inside the north of Portugal, but also boosted everyone’s self-esteem and created a better world. Even, if only during that beautiful hour-long concert.
See you next year, Vodafone Paredes de Coura!
WtMM Team