Devendra, Sigur Rós & Wraygunn

Well, last month I managed to go to 3 concerts, one by chance... They were all so different, brought out different feelings, with a mingle of personal feelings and experiencing something I absolutely love: live concerts, even if sometimes it’s hard to only live music, live the moment, as if nothing existed besides living the concert…

The first one was Devendra Banhart, an ex-homeless with a god’s voice and a poet! Great songs, great lyrics and a person who just seems amazing, free… But his music can really touch a person, not only the uplifting ones, but also the ones that actually carry great truths within them, dreams that are a mere utopia, but make you want to dream, to think that maybe dreams can become true!

The concert was preceded by Caveira, raw instrumental music that frightened nearly half of the audience, I kind of think they couldn’t quite understand how two different musical styles could exist in the same room ;) As I love electric guitars and I love them also loud, electric, hypnotic in full raw power, I must say I enjoyed the concert… However, when Devendra and his pals got in magic began! Its was an amazing concert, better than the one in Sudoeste, mainly because at least most of the people at least knew his single, I didn’t loose the first 3 songs and the concert was much longer (I keep on not understanding why the 2nd stage in Sudoeste only allowed bands to play 45 minutes if the concerts where being done at the same time as the ones in the main stage)… Anyway the room required a more intimate environment and that was what we got, a very warm Devendra playing wonderfully, a magical night with fantastic music only ruined by the fact I had to sit during the whole concert! How can anybody sit all through a concert like that? I couldn’t believe that I was forced to sit all time just because there were people being so polite as I was so we would block the view of the little lords and princesses that could not see a concert standing… I now they paid as much as I did, that they had all the right to sit during the concert, but I had to sacrifice my right to see the concert standing and finding it rather difficult to sit not to mention I kind of offense to a band, as if their music had been so bad that people didn’t even stand to enjoy it, when it was quite the contrary! Anyway getting out of a concert singing the last music of that concert and a feeling of joy passing through your soul, makes everything worth it, and just to imagine I had considered not going…

My second concert was Sigur Rós, but unfortunately it didn’t hit me the same way it hit me 2 years ago, when I got out of the Coliseu dos Recreios absolutely enchanted, as I had experienced an absolutely magical concert, an heavenly night… I can’t pin point why, perhaps the fact that I wasn’t able to see the stage or the band, perhaps because () was more obscure, the band was living a more intense and obscure moment in their lifes, but 2 years ago they seemed so much more intense, so much more involving or perhaps 2 years ago I saw the best concert the band ever gave and now all the other will seem inferior because expectations where raised to high!

About one week ago I saw Wraygunn in Santiago Alquimista (by the way a perfect room to see The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The White Stripes, Beck,… and huge list of other, but as we don’t have all day ;) Being just inches from the band in the front row was absolutely amazing, Paulo Furtado as always a show off but in a good sense, as he isn’t arrogant, just with an extreme attitude of rockstar, that some how never gets to too exaggerated although close, but he is one of the most important elements of the band, it’s leader and icon… It was a concert by chance, but a great concert with it’s mix of blues and rock and roll, totally electrifying, making it impossible for one to not plunge into the rhythm of the guitar and the drums or the bass… It’s just a pity most people don’t appreciate what we have got here that is good, while most kids (and they are really kids, teens) are mad about Da Weasel (when Sam the Kid has much more quality), and all the commercial hip-hop crap that appears in our national market, bands like Wraygunn, D3io, The Legendary Tiger Man, among others and even Clã are looked dismissed as not so cool, when they are the soul of Portuguese music (fado, Madredeus and others belong to a different style/segment so I’m not including that type of Portuguese music, as they cannot be compared)…