Barreiro Rocks Festival (Portugal) -- Garage Rock Mania ! PART TWO

PART TWO of my coverage of Barreiro Rocks (scroll down for Part One) ...

After Thursday afternoon's roster of local unknowns, it was time for the Main Event--

6.October -- GD Ferroviarios, Barreiro -- The events kicked off at the Main Stage of the Festival this year with Lisbon's Vicious Five, a pop/postpunk band in the new Brooklyn/NY rock vein. That is, the vein of 2002, when this band would've sounded much more edgy and different. But the energy was there, the records were well reproduced, the band was tight. The frontman's crowd/festival organizer-baiting gestures aside, this wasn't a bad show at all, and certainly it brought the late teen/college student crowd from Lisbon (no small feat!). The sound is sort of a melange of early Liars (circa 2002) and At the Drive In (especially the vocalist who is a screamer of sorts). In the end this band didn't fit the festival particularly well but they certainly played a decent show.

The Black Time (UK) followed and were something of a disappointment-- their records sound like the Fall meets the Gories, but instead we got a somewhat tepid rockabilly/garage trio who seemed to have the same beat on every song (and NOT in a good way). Saving grace was the bassist's hot look and high backing vocals and the last two songs in which they finally let rip some energy. Maybe we caught them on a bad night ?

Expectations were indeed somewhat low when the Blood Safari (UK) bounded onto the stage because the band shares its drummer with The Black Time. All expectations were shattered however when Portugal's most famous garage guitarist, Vitor Torpedo, lead an amazing rockabilly instrumental as introduction for the lead singer, who bounded out in wife beater, gold button down and gold chain combo. The band then launched into a set which could best be described as that moment when you're incredibly drunk but you haven't felt any of the bad effects yet-- giddy, dizzy, jumping up and down, howling and being absolutely ridiculous. I didn't know Mark E Smith could be turned into a redneck, but apparently it's true! This band has songs, melodies, and musicians so we're hopefully in for a good record...

Atom Rhumba, of Valencia, Spain, ended the Main Stage activities for the night, their second trip to the festival. They put on quite a show, sort of a funk rock style, with all kinds of instruments but I was a bit too distracted by the previous band to notice much. According to a friend they played an obscure Art Ensemble of Chicago (feat. Fontella Bass on vocals) track. That is pretty cool...

AFTER the Main Stage, the crowd headed over to the after-party space at Carvoaria club where we were blown away by another Portuguese band, the Green Machine from Barcelos. This band's record comes off as a sort of updated Stooges pop/rock but the live show was a perfect amalgam of Strokes meets Stooges... The lead singer careened into the crowd, using one of those oldstyle radio/boxing match announcer mikes; baiting the females, he was eventually carried by the crowd back and forth around the room. It was an explosion of energy but on the other hand an incredibly tight performance. This is definitely a band to watch.

Guest DJ K-Gone (USA via Prague/CZ) helped me carry the night home with DJing that went until about 6:30 in the morning, when we cut it off to make sure we could see the next night of shows! Highlights of what I DJed included "You Can't Sit Down" by Phil Upchurch, a mod organ classic that people really danced to. I have to pull that one out more often!

(see next post for PART THREE !)