I’ve been writing it for a week, and what I wrote at the moment it covers only the first day of
Sonorama 2017. It’s bad. It's inappropriate. I’m fucking up all the deadlines (though there’s no one to set the deadlines for me), and what I really need now is the correction of plans.
However, here it goes.
Premise
I was forced to go through a lot of problems with this
Sonorama. First of all, at the end of June I was told that my chiefs’ vacations would coincide with mine in August, and they wouldn’t let me go. Previously I’ve discussed my
Sonorama vacation with them many times, and everything was ok – so this situation has got me stunned in the bad way. I had no idea what to do, and was only waiting for some miracle to come. The miracle has come in the form of the unexpected pregnancy of my direct chief’s wife. Her first trimester started quite harsh what made her impossible to travel, so the chief postponed his vacation. That apparently opened the doors for me to come along the way out – but one week before
Sonorama I fell ill with the tonsillitis that led me to stay in bed for 7 days – with body temp 39*C for 5 days in a row. These circumstances successfully made me coming to Aranda painfully worn-out and totally unprepared. I wanted to precede our visit with a couple of preliminary reviews (the most thought-about and even half-done was “20 bands for 20th anniversary” coverage of 20 most interesting ‘smaller font’ bands to see) – but all plans went crashed with my illness.
Despite my exhausted state of body and mind we did a lot in our 5th
Sonorama. This time there were more stages inside the town of Aranda, some of them were located in remote places which made the daytime logistics quite complicated. But we exceeded our usual normative of 10-11 bands per day to observe, and approached the level of 13-15 bands seen in a day. The major difference of this
Sonorama for us as compared to the 4 previous festivals is that we didn’t manage to reach the Plaza del Trigo performances. As I told you many times before, this square is the heart of the festival, but this time we found bands to perform on other stages more interesting than the ones of Plaza del Trigo. Thus we omitted the secret shows, because to see these undeclared concerts from the good viewpoint it needs to come to the square before the first band starts performing. If you come later – you’ll be forced to listen to the shows from afar due to the venue quickly getting overcrowded within the first minutes of the first concert. The only secret show we attended was one of
Leon Benavente – the vast difference with the previous year when we observed all the secret shows from the very first line.
Regarding the plan of the bands to see we made during Moscow Domodedovo – Madrid Barajas flight, we successfully met the most part of it, with some painful omissions:
- We missed the show of Niños Mutantes almost completely because there were soooo many people when we came from Burgos stage after seeing Paranoid Android,
- We missed the performance of Echo because it coincided with Viva Suecia,
- We missed the show of Noise Box and Correos because their performances coincided with Nixon and Villanueva respectively,
- We had no chance to see Nocturnos because of our flight back home at Monday.
Anyway, we saw a lot of bands and we didn’t die. We met a lot of people. These were the happiest days of our lives.
09/08/17. The night. Location: camping
La Fiesta Bienvenida should start for us with the performances of
Amaro Ferreiro and
Rufus T. Firefly. Though
Amaro Ferreiro is around here for so much time, his solo career could make
James Iha seem prolific. This fact shouldn’t distract you cos he co-penned some of
Ivan Ferreiro’s most memorable songs (“
Turnedo” is, probably, the best evidence) – so his songwriting abilities are irrefutable. The second album that bears his name alone on the sleeve was put out the previous year. “
Biologo” is very sympathetic record – just like its auteur is. Despite some apparent similarities with his brother’s art,
Amaro makes something of his own. As a performer he seemed a bit shy (what is rather his personal
feature than anything else), so all it was sweet and warm and intimate. We liked it a lot cos his songs and the manner of performing were pretty close to our inner selves.
Rufus T. Firefly is the band whose name first comes to mind when you talk about the bands in the blossom #rightnow. It’s a mistake to call them ‘young emerging band’ with their 10 years long career and the string of amazing albums in back catalogue but it’s obvious that within the last couple of years
Rufus considerably increased their popularity. Now they are capable of gathering the crowd that is limited only by the size of the venue. Additionally, you hardly meet a person who doesn’t like them. Everybody likes
Rufus T. Firefly, especially those amongst the musicians. The band rocked the Plaza del Trigo two years ago. Now they played not less than 4 times on festival: the first night, the Santa Catalina stage as a surprise band, a close-up acoustic show in Le Club, and as a part of
Paranoid Android supergroup covering the tracks of
Radiohead. We attended three of those four shows. The first one was the most impressive one. The distorted darkness that surrounded the camping stage in the General Gutierrez Park perfectly fitted the synth-soaked psychedelia the band created onstage. Even if the sound was not ideal it was absolutely clear why the band is so adored by their colleagues.
Victor Cabezuelo and
Julia Martin are one of the best musicians in their respective fields, and their music is a grandeur. A listener’s delight.
10/08/17. The morning. Main location: Plaza de Sal
After seeing
Vurro and
Antes
Vurro: once viral one man band whose face and forehead is covered with the cow skull. He plays a drum kit and three keyboards. Additionally, he has two cymbals standing both sides of his head, and he is playing them with the horns of the skull;
Antes: alternative rock trio with high quality ‘metallic’ sound and Biffy Clyro stage behavior,
and the brief unexpected encounter with
Sean Frutos (
Second)
We had 15 minutes before Antes started playing so I rushed to the Plaza del Trigo to see what was going on in there but was not capable to get into due to the most streets around were banned for trespassing. I quickly returned to Plaza de Sal only to see Tanya making some strange gestures. From the distance I didn’t get what she meant, so when I got close she told me that I had just passed by Sean Frutos, the frontman of Second. In seconds we reached him, briefly talked to him and asked for a photo. He was so kind to let us do so!
we headed to Maria Pacheco stage to see
Los Vengadores. We caught them two years ago on Burgos stage – and they were excellent with their over-the-top energy and memorable songs. Now they have slightly corrected their approach and presented more stripped-down sound and more mid-tempo set of songs. This didn’t change the fact that
Los Vengadores is a band to follow, and their performance was the best for us in the midday section of events. When they covered up their actuation we approached them and expressed our feelings to
Coque, the frontman of the band. He was nice and friendly talking to us and giving us the CD copy of their recent album “
El Arte De Vivir” as a gift.
After we returned to the old town of Aranda we run into the guys of
Igloo along with
Rodrigo Valiente, the frontman of
The Trunks. We were laughing together for 10 minutes and made a lot of photos.
Then our
amigos gallegos walked away for lunch, while we headed along to Plaza Mayor intending to get ourselves a couple of white wines. Passing along the Plaza del Trigo we saw
Arizona Baby playing their ‘concierto secreto’. In the back of the crowd we noticed
Alejandro, the frontman of the band
Kitai, who is of the Russian descent. He is famous for his furious stage appearance being ruthless as for spectators as for himself. So I was a bit scared touching his shoulder to attract his attention. But in real life he was so sweet and friendly that, after we did some photographs together with him we felt like if the sun poured its shine on us after the hours of heavy raining.
10/08/17. The night. Location: Recinto ferial
Right after we entered the festive zone we unintentionally stopped at Burgos stage where
Molina Molina and his band performed at that time. I’ve read a review of his recent disc “
Oz”, but for some reason never listened to the songs. Now this band is in my wish list, the hottest part of the wish list. Then we moved to the La Carpa Meetin Arts tent to see
Destino 48 - the band that play melodic guitar-driven pop music with the 80’s touch in the melodies – to kill some time between
Molina Molina and
A Por Ella Ray.
A Por Ella Ray were the first band marked ‘obligatory’ in our plan for this night. And they didn’t disappoint us with tight and catchy song-oriented rock rooted in earnestness and sincerity.
Anni B Sweet was the second one marked obligatory. Her dress was pink, her set of songs was concentrated around the album “
Chasing Illusions” – one of my favorite albums of the last three years. This could not disappoint me, this could only make me happy.
20 Años de Sonorama was a “best of” show directed by
Charlie Bautista, the
rock espanol jack of all trades. He presented some of the most famous songs in the history of the Spanish indie scene. It started from "
Rincon Exquisito" sung by our newfound acquaintance
Sean Frutos. It was followed by
Izal's "
Mujer de Verde",
Ivan Ferreiro's "
Turnedo"... It was gorgeous but after 4 songs I run away to see
Tuya. Passing by La Carpa Meetin Arts I was attracted by the sounds and stepped into. Previously I knew nothing about
Yoyo Banana, but they became one of two greatest discoveries of this
Sonorama for me. Their performance was unattended as it coincided with
20 años – and it was fucking injustice, because the band was as competent as original and they sounded really great.
Feeling guilty for missing
Tuya I escaped La Carpa. Another great disappointment was to see the performance of
Tuya was also unattended. Having barely 40 persons of audience the band fronted by
David T. Ginzo arranged one of the best performances of the fest. Presenting their most recent release “
A War Is Coming”
Tuya appeared before our eyes as a duo. I’d describe the new sound of the band as quasi-psychedelic kraut-pop with lots of synths, occasional guitars and memorable hooks. The show was supported by the mysterious backstage video which added some majesty to the overall result. The older tracks were also reworked in “
A War is Coming” stylistics. I think no one of those who came to see them left the venue unsatisfied.
Then I returned to the main stage to catch the final moments of
20 Años de Sonorama right when
Maryan Frutos (
Kuve) and
Deu (
WAS) were in the middle of their “
Toro” cover (originally by
El Columpio Asesino), and after we did a couple of wines and listened to
Leon Benavente's "
Ser Brigada" we moved our feet to see
Siloe.
Siloe has grown as a performer for this year between now and his
Sonorama 2016’s Plaza del Trigo show. Back then he sounded lacking experience of the live concerts, but now he and his band re-appeared as a high class professionals ready to perform on larger stages. In the crowd we met
Jose and
Diego from
Yo, Estratosferico and talked to them about tomorrow's plans.
After that we had something like an hour of spare time so we decided to catch the place on the first line before Aranda stage to see
Dorian from the better viewpoint. We successfully achieved the goal placing our bodies right before the
Belly Hernandez’ working table. Anyway, our happiness was cut short by the unpredictable circumstances: the set of
Dorian lasted only for 4 songs and then the equipment called it quits making the further performance impossible.
To diminish the disappointment we walked into VIP zone for drinks. After half an hour of waiting we returned to La Carpa to catch the beginning of our Barcelona friends
Pin&Pon djs' set. We waved hello to them, and after the brief dancing to
Ladilla Rusa' s "
Macaulay Culkin" we sent them the goodbye kisses and left the venue thus ending our first full day of
#Sonorama20.
Apartamentos Acapulco are widely considered the new hopes of Spanish shoegaze. They even come close to the “new Los Planetas” tag. In the middle of their performance it was slightly spoiled by the problems with the gear but these problems were not so crucial as those for Dorian last night, so the band continued without slowing down. As many other shoegaze bands, live Apartamentos Acapulco sounded louder than on albums. For me they seemed closer to Modelo de Respuesta Polar than to Los Planetas (it’s neither good nor bad as I adore them both).
Ivan Ferreiro presented his most recent release “Casa” ((p)2017 Warner). As for me, his two latest albums (“Val Minor – Madrid” and the aforementioned “Casa”) contain good songs but no hits comparable to “Turnedo” or “NYC” (with possible exception of "Pajaro Azul"). So the show was somehow the reflection of it. It was 100% alive and kicking - but I'm still dreaming about Ivan's concert that would include the rocking numbers like “Cancion Humeda” or “Paraisos Perdidos”.
The next point of interest in our schedule was the performance of Niños Mutantes but when we escaped the Burgos stage we saw the largest crowd we had ever witnessed before the second-rank stage, so it was apparent we had no chance to see Niños Mutantes from any proper place. Disappointed we went to VIP zone to have ourselves some beer or calimocho (and we had it, yeah!) and to wait for the moment when we could go for gaining two good places before Xoel Lopez in fair competition with other festivaleros. Right after Niños Mutantes went offstage, and the whole crowd started migrating to Ribera, we came to the far left of Aranda stage and settled down there in couple of meters from the security bar. Not ideal but quite appropriate.
Earlier it was declared that Xoel Lopez would play the set of songs based on his Deluxe past. In fact it was 50/50 Deluxe and Xoel. Everybody would expect him to perform "Que No" and "Historia Universal" - what he surely did. Other ones - like "Cielo de Madrid" and especially "See You in London" were the relative surprises. Xoel performed being backed by the full band that included trumpets, sax and percussion. Closer to the end of the set he stopped singing and revealed that 20th anniversary coincided with his own 40th birthday now. While he was talking Javier Ajenjo entered the stage and made his heartfelt congratulations to the old friend.
