Up. To. Date.

No. This is not the depressing post of a twenty-something years old boy I´ve been promising to write. Sorry to disappoint you blog dweller that somehow ended up on this blog and post. I guess I´ve hoped for time to pass and for things to get better so I didn´t have to write it. There´s still many twenty-something years to go though...
2013 did not start well. From the death of the dog I grew up with, on the very first days of the new year, to a forced gap year from university and a difficult job search in such country and small city I live in, life was not what a not-long-ago teenager, imagined it to be like. Time passed. And so did life. Things got better. Got a job. One that started exactly on the early morning after Muse´s stadium concert that I was so looking forward in order to take my mind from a semester of emptiness. Coffee would help. As it did all Summer. Promises of a better 2013 arose. It was a good Summer. Tiring, but productive. University seemed possible again. Romance too, of all the things, seemed possible. Summer ended, university started. Jump to another concert; Au Revoir Simone. Again. Hello stranger. First meetings (dates?) in concerts don´t seem as scary as in any other place. Show, autographs, taxi, home. Pleasure to meet you. We shall meet again. And again. And again. Love ensues. Distance is a detail. Depth over distance every time my dear. No idea what the future holds for me. But I´m happy again. And I have someone to make happy. Sunsets, parks, walks, bed. Whenever I´m with her is good. Good times are back. And I hope not to disappoint.

Festival Season

You don´t need to be a big music fan to realize that music festivals are happening. Every year, every Summer, music festivals are around and with many brands becoming part of the events they are getting more air time and publicity, so you don´t need to check music news or specialized websites to know where, when and who is playing on that festival near you (or not so much). I remember reading that around Europe (not knowing exactly the boundaries of the thing) there are around 400 music festivals. All genres included I´d guess.

I gotta say I´m a festivals virgin. I´ve been to a few different festivals but never did the camping bit festivals are associated with. Shameful, I know. The special thing about festivals is that, unlike that single concert you´re going to watch in the afternoon/evening which is already enough to make such day a special day, is basically a few days of music experience surround by thousands of others hoping for a good day of talented being displayed not only in one stage but in two, three, four.....or to the point I want to make with this post..... this .

I´m not posting that one particularly for the line up or the festival in itself. But...look at it. Here, like I mentioned, we´re used to 3 stages at a festival. Maybe even four or five with those stages being a bit different (at the entrance of the festival or even in some place near the festival but not exactly on the grounds of it). But there you can´t even know exactly how many they are because after those two main arenas they just put a bunch of names and say "appearing across all music arenas".
Then you go down the line up just to see theatre, dance, film, comedy, spoken word, literary arenas! When you go to a (normal?...) festival you know beforehand that you will have to compromise this or that band or even a good place in the crowd because you wanna see that other band playing on the stage on the other side of the place. Now imagine going to one like this. Imagine one of your friends wants you to watch a cool movie on the film tent...or a really good comedian on the comedy tent...or he wants you to go check that dj on the electronic tent because he plays that one cool song (gotta say that is a good tent to go spend some time late at night on a festival, at least I like it...maybe because I don´t listen or go out for that kind of music)... Conclusion: you have to be prepared for some busy 3/4 days and take a couple more afterwards to sleep because sleep must be vastly overrated at Latitude festival and the likes of it.
Let´s not even talk Glastonbury...I don´t know much apart from videos on Youtube, photos and some news articles but it looks like a league of its own. On the line-up it says "acts & attraction across over 100 stages"...on a festival for more than 175.000 people... I´ve been to a day in one festival with almost 100.000 and it had a couple of stages and a few attractions...I thought it was awesome...

Live

Apologies dear blog. I´ve been very inconsiderate towards you. I checked and this is the third I went a month without posting...even if it was only a music video (aka lazy post) Forgive me. Here´s...well...a lazy post. But an awesome one!



After listening to the studio version of this song a long time ago I searched for a live one to see how this song would sound on stage. Took a long time for one pro-shot version to appear. But it does not disappoint. Definitely helped this song to become one of my all time favourites (uh...big words!).
I don´t know what it is but Susanne has something...something that makes me wish I could meet her for chat. Also to clarify something she said on an interview about Kate Bush...don´t question such lady, Susanne...I wanna like, both, your music and personality! So keep on being cool.

It´s Music To Your Ears

This is why I adore Youtube



This video is 17 years old... And this song is just... If there´s a song worth checking its meaning it´s this one.

Review - Mumford & Sons - Coliseu de Lisboa

I come very late for this review. Mainly because there won´t be any review. I know my reviews are biased based on I only go to concerts which artists I enjoy listening. But when it comes to this one it´s hard to do one while I´ve been singing and jumping all concert. Massive show. Go watch them if you can is a valid cliché to apply in this case.

Kudos to Jesse Quin (member of Keane) and Deap Vally for the opening acts (and later participation on M&S songs). Well chosen.

This is not a review

Ugh, look at this blog.... So abandoned. And the weird thing is...I´m doing absolutely nothing with my life (br€ak from uni + find a job here [country and town] is not easy) which means I have all the time in the world to write something here. True that an eventless life can result in a shortness of ideas and, well, events that would give me ideas for blog posts but still...what an awful blogger this guy is. I could at least throw music videos at you of all the new stuff I find or good old music loves but not even that... Or bore you with sports posts. Or crappy movie reviews. "Poems" (yes, there´s some somewhere buried in here...). Or love life confes...oh wait...those aren´t real...

Moving on.

This is not a review.
Neither of 2012 or the concert I went see a month ago and of which I always write a review a couple of days after it happened. The thing is...the concert was a revival of the mythic(!) Queen concert at Wembley by a tribute band. I mean, it´s not Freddie, Brian, Roger or John, but still singing Queen out loud on a room with 5000+ more people doing the same is something I dream of since I was a kid wondering my uncle record collection and picking up Queen albums and having them as one of my biggest influences in the music taste I have nowadays. Which is flawless. Obviously. So, as you can imagine sing all those songs from that concert out loud with all those Queen fans around is something hard to put in words-of-a-review.

And, as I´m writing this at the first hours of the Christmas Eve, I wish you Merry Christmas! (or not if you don´t celebrate...)
As for me it´s always a time I look forward to. Hoping to have another good one with the people I like the most. Then may the English football make that (usually boring) last week of the year less-boring. Although Arsenal match was postponed... Boo!

I leave you with a Christmas song included on a special [Christmas] show from BBC Radio 2 that unfortunately didn´t have a session this year (or as I find just now it had but with different people) but I don´t mind listen to last year one once again.

It´s Nerina Pallot, Lisa Hannigan e Fyfe Dangerfield singing "I Believe In Father Chritmas". Enjoy!

It´s Music to Your Ears

No, YOU´RE welcome, hipsters.



da da da da dadadada da da da da dadadadadaaaaa

Also, female drummer alert!!!!
_________________________________________________________


I have another one but apparently Youtube is telling me that due to what most likely is the awesomeness of the video it can not be embedded. Boo! Or maybe I broke it because of all the Replay button pressing...

Here´s the link though >> awesomeness

Apparently those kids are 17 years old. While I struggled at maths in high school they are just being cool and awesome. Sigh.

Take my money!!

...music!

+ The Reminder also by Miss Leslie Feist to complete my collection of her albums.

And some things to look forward to:

Review - Bon Iver - Coliseu do Porto

In the music business, specifically in the touring part of it, there´s often an interesting [read intriguing] fact that is artists known and acclaimed in a country do not include that country in their tour dates. Not that Justin Vernon topped the charts here but even that is not enough (hint: she´s pregnant now).

Bon Iver is one of those cases. His tours always seemed to miss this little European corner but once he noticed us we thought it would be nice to sold out the venues with a few weeks in advance.

I didn´t resist and had to take a look to what kind of setlists he was doing. I liked what I saw. Also didn´t resist and took a look to the latest one in Lisbon the day before...a few changes. I thought I wouldn´t be surprised though. But with Bon Iver you never know...

And I was. Not in the beginning. Despite having started with "Woods" in Lisbon, Justin went back to the "Perth" and "Minnesota, WI" beginning, just like his second album opens. And if he spent a lot of time thinking what sequence of songs would be perfect for that album he can consider that time very well spent. We continued on that album with the wonderful single "Towers" followed by "Michicant". Here´s one thing if you have a band...if you double the element of an already cool thing you will end up having the double of fun. And that´s what happens with Bon Iver. Having a double percussion with two sets of drums sure has its impact! And what a brilliant impact that is. It owns the room. And the same goes for the double violins and double wind instruments even if at a first thought such instruments wouldn´t take over such a concert. Conclusion? Two guitars is just too mainstream...

Sings of surprises appeared. "Beach Baby", not often played was a treat. A few moments later the sequence that caught my eyes on the indiscretion through setlists that I did the day before: "Holocene", "Blood Bank", "Skinny Love", "Re: Stacks", "Creature Fear". Words should never fail to a reviewer but I can only think of the Perfect Justin (or someone for him) wrote on a photo of the concert posted on Facebook.

I´ve read that the day before in Lisbon there were some people in the audience showing their love in a very audible way during moments where they should - and also, more importantly, let the others - enjoy the show. I´m glad I read that after the Porto concert either way I would be fearing way too much on how and when someone would eventually ruin a nice moment. What can I say is that I´m still impressed for the respect showed. Sure there was a couple whistles and love you(s) but immediately followed by many intimidating ssshhh. Just like in tennis when a player is waiting for silence to serve.

"Lisbon, OH" (not played in Lisbon...don´t be mad mates...after all it´s the city in Ohio, not yours!) and "Beth/Rest" beautifully lead the way the Encore. It´s amazing to see the how a 9-members band delivers such brilliance. And here´s my kudos to them. Bon Iver is those 9 talented guys playing with a creator called Justin Vernon. And what a great band Bon Iver is!

Coming back to surprises...Björk and an illness might have been the reason why I didn´t went to a festival she was headlining and later on had to cancel her performance but karma was nice to me. "Who Is It?" not often played was right there being amazingly transformed (it even got the beatbox...and not by some machine!). I was sold. Now there was just "The Wolves (Act I and II)" to sing along until screaming the last words of the song. Literally.

_______________________________

P.S. If you don´t like perv people may you know leave this blog thinking you read a really good *cof* review.

Still here? Ok...

To the two girls behind me: First, sorry for being tall. [eh, not really]. Second, where´s that English accent from? Third, pretty sure angels look like the one with the white [angelic] dress.

To the lonely girl beside me: Hey, this is lonely boy. I´ve noticed you had a lot of fun. As much as I did. Singing and dancing. Well, in my case, some weird movements that I call dance but it´s probably just awkward stuff. Or an hipster dance no one ever saw before and I´m doing it before it´s cool. Moving on...since I´m a fool I didn´t talk to you, even if it was just "hello, meet you in another awesome concert?" but I´m hopeless at this. You were beautiful. Oh, in case there was more cases (weirdos like me) like this...we were about 10 meters away from stage [~10th row]. See you next time, hopefully!

P.S.1 Sam Amidon did the opening for Bon Iver. Jumping from guitar, to violin and banjo I´m sure even himself can´t quite describe his style. But it´s a cool (original) one. One of his guitar solos almost stole the night from the headliner. Almost. And what´s interesting is that the same thing I said above applies here; If you have something cool and you had a little something to it you can end up with the double of fun. I think that´s what the crowd thought when a couple of Bon Iver band members - trumpet and violin - came to play with Sam. Justin Vernon mentioned later Sam has quite an unique style and personality and you can easily see that while he´s performing.

Holidays mode: On

Here´s the cool things every cool kid is listening while enjoying the cool weather.







Cool Cool Cool*




*Community rocks.

It´s Music To Your Ears

Because reading articles on Esquire magazine telling what new bands you should be listening to is way more fun than studying...

And I feel like you need Summer songs...



Found tonight. Good sound. And doesn´t the girl on the video have the prettiest smile? I say yes.

One of the nice ways to find out new stuff is subscribe to youtube channels of US radios like KCRW. Here´s why...



Oh, how many times I´ve listened to this one already...


Lots of new sounds to help me going through the studying part of the uni semester. Now the Euro 2012 won´t help much though...Força Portugal!!

It´s Music To Your Ears

Easily one of my favourite tracks of 2012




_______________________________________

On the last post there was a new single of someone I already know since her first album release, so here´s another one:



Tip: a nice way to get into her music is her performance on Live from Abbey Road...can´t get tired of that.
The new album is just coming out and by the preview I´ve listened too it is promising!

Old & New

Me and my sleep deprived mind found a new band and we declare this band fantastic (first things first) and most likely the most sexy one. A duo. The guy is: Johnny Depp. Well, not really but if you click play you´ll see my point. The girl...oozes a ridiculous amount of sexiness... Especially on this performance on Later with Jools Holland

The way she moves.....my sleep deprived mind can´t take this...

________________________________________

On yet more musical shenanigans, and knowing I said I shouldn´t post so many video but don´t giving a damn about that (oh, such a badass), do you remember this girl?

Lisa Mitchell, the girl of "Neopolitan Dreams" is about to release an EP and this is the first single.

I quite fancy her too.

So, there you go.

New sounds I just found and an old, yet very young, Aussie girl that I know for a long time, with new music.

Time to get some sleep.

And by some I mean 5 poor hours.

Maybe the sleep depriveness will make me found more new awesome music tomorrow.

EDIT: This is the kind of things that can happen when you have a sleep deprived mind...



My beloved office chair broke...with a bang. All fixed now ´cause ya know...I´m one of those guys that fixes everything and has a talent to fix all the broke things in a house [/not]

To appreciate, listen and watch

As a fan of photography I use to wonder the corners of the Internet where good photos can be seen, DeviantArt (DA) being one of the listed. Since I started going around DA and looking to the categories I was most interested in - nature, portraits, architecture/urbanism - I end up having a list of photographers I enjoyed more. Many of them decided to create Facebook fanpages so it would be easier to follow their work, now that Facebook has a nice photography layout, and it was there that I found a nice video that I´ve watched countless times already:

You can follow the work of the girl on the video here DeviantArt page and Facebook page . Her facial expressions are fantastic and so is her photography. And she´s kinda pretty...but you knew I would end up on that part of the DA portraits.

But even cooler on that video...

The song used is fantastic! The Joy Formidable - Whirring.

So, I´ve covered the appreciate (photography) part of this post and the listen part.

To the watch part we go.

Do you ever think on going discover the beautiful country that Iceland is...alone? That thought crossed my mind already...but this girl had that thought...and did it:

Fifteen minutes of your life more then well spent!

Have a good week.

It´s Music To Your Ears

Here it is the fantastic band I [kinda] mentioned on the last post and that I found on an episode of The Late Late Show.



Enjoy, because you will press replay and sing along on the third play of the song. Guarantee!

It´s Music To Your Ears

The first mind scratch of this post was a special edition with a compilation of videos (around 8 or 9...yup, I even made a list so I would not forget any of them) of new music I found for the last few weeks. Then I thought it would be a lot of videos in one post and some of them could not get the proper attention they should get, so I thought in embed 2 or 3 of them at a time.
But like the many of videos and new music I´ve found weren´t already enough, while watching an episode of the [awesome] Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson I found myself watching a superb performance of the band that played on the studio that night. They made me go back with the one video per post routine because it would be more appropriate since that band deserved full attention. And it will also mean that I have new music to post in this little corner of the blog.

Although, that band will not be the one posted this week (whaa? why?!). Meanwhile some Icelandic guys appeared.
While going around blogs and randomly pressing the next blog button so I could enlarge my list of cool blogs to read and while I was already about to give up, annoyed by those blogs who have the music starting and you don´t seem to find a button to turn it off (if they exist...), I came across a silent one...as all blogs should be. And the girl of that blog had a similar section to this It´s Music To Your Ears on her blog and I decided to click play on the video...which actually was just the YT playing bar without any image.

And look what I have found



Of Monsters and Men!

Absolutely fantastic.

Album coming soon...to my house!

Review - Feist - Coliseu do Porto

If you take some time to read the reviews of Feist latest album - Metals - you will notice that in basically all of them she is known as the girl of the song "1234". Not in a redundant way but since it was part of a big campaign of a tech company which symbol is a piece of fruit, it was the song that made more people listen to her music. But when that same girl with such a trademark song doesn´t need to include it on her setlists and still make a perfect setlist you know you are in for a memorable night.

After a not-so-captivating opening by Fionn Reagan (which despite that has great songs and a beautiful voice) Feist got on stage a little after 10pm. Starts with a song of the album she is presenting on this tour, and if you excuse my easy input, Metals is a very solid album. Proof of that is how on the very first song Leslie Feist made us all scream "A COMMOTION" and the crowd knew we were in for a special show.

The following moment comes with an intriguing intro that revealed a brand new version of a single of the album "The Reminder". "My Moon My Man" sounding like you never heard it in any former performance. So, at the second song one of my favourite details of the show was revealed: brand new clothes for old songs. All of them sounding different of what you were used on the album and on many live videos on Youtube. To add to "My Moon..." the other oldies that were played included the hauntingly beautiful "So Sorry", "Mushaboom" (with special dance taught by Feist!) "Feel It All", and the classic "Limit To Your Love". Yes, that one that James Blake has a nice rendition of...borrowed from Feist. Other oldies were played on the...3 encores, but we will get there later.

Meanwhile Feist was presenting the wonderful songs of the new album. There were plenty of them from the singles "How Come You Never Go There" (that even with no brass live section sounds great) to the second single "The Bad In Each Other". But an album is not only made of singles and the crowd knows it because they seemed to know all the gems played. Including "Caught A Long Wind" that also with no string (violins) section on this tour, sounds flawless.

After we conclude that in the packed room there was people from every corner of the world (Feist talented drummer comes from New Zealand) "The Circle Married The Line" was played. A song about the ocean from someone who lives in a landlock as Feist told us.

On stage, helping Leslie on this tour, there´s a trio of girls called "Mountain Man", that had her own moment before the first encore showing why they were chosen for the back vocals...perfect harmony between the three [beautiful] ladies. To add to the already mentioned drummer there is also a man-who-plays-everything and a pianist that when you think he is very good on the piano and keys he comes to surprise you, not on the piano, but on drums with a killer(!) version of When I Was a Young Girl . She rocked so much that a little wood table she had near her didn´t resist and broke letting Feist throw the missing pieces as a rocker would do.

I said I would come back to the old songs because the encores were composed by them. And that way Feist nailed probably the better accomplished set of encores I´ve seen. "Secret Heart" - a fan favourite - showed once again Leslie skills on her beloved guitars to the delight of the fans. Despite the non-inclusion of "Inside & Out" on the official setlist the song made an appearance...with the public singing it on their own with a little help from Feist along the way.

To finish the night, "Intuition" and the astonishingly beautiful "Let It Die". Never such a sad song ended a concert so well.

One to remember.

Setlist:

Note: "The Water" was not played. Replaced by "Secret Heart"...which I was dying to listen live.

Not all Mondays are bad

This Monday I will use one of this magic tickets

Hint: It´s a girl!

It´s Music To Your Ears

Give this guy and his album a chance and you will feel better.

With the above sentence I just used two song titles of his album (named "Making Mirrors") that I´m listening for the very first time right now. Amazing range of genres on the 4/5 songs I´ve listened to until now.

And all started because of a Lisa Hanningan cover that appeared on my sub box of Youtube. I recognized the song, went search for it and I remember that I´ve listened to it before. Was at my grandma´s house with one of my younger sisters and while listening the song we were like...what is this?...sounds...meh...but somehow instead of changing channel (probably for Disney Channel...) we continued to listen to it...and end up loving it. But forgetting to search for it later...

Here it is.

And awesome timing to find it. Weirdly relating to it at the moment. Brilliant song.

____________

In other news...second semester is on! This one is looking like I will actually have to apply myself...will see. Last time I said that I end up doing less than on the year before...still nailed the semester though. Probably to be unemployed in half an year or putting more money, that I don´t have, in continuing to accumulate knowledge, on a masters degree. Will see. One day at a time.

P.S. Found a nice blog that kinda inspired me to write on mine on a more often basis. I will probably fail at that but if you happen to see here [even more] meaningless posts it´s because I´m trying to keep this super updated and stuff.

Enjoy the music!

It´s Music To Your Ears

I´ve found Lisa Hannigan probably more than a year ago via cover of one of her songs, beautifully done by this girl , which I already wrote about, here .

So, and without further ado to not lose myself in compliments, here´s Lisa.