Contempopranea (pronounced with the emphasis on the 1st ‘a’) is one of the longest-running indie festivals in Spain. This year marks the considerable change in the concept of the fest. Historically, it always took its place in the town of Alburquerque, Extremadura province. But within the 19th edition of festival it was divided onto two legs: 1st to take part in the town of Badajoz (with such the renowned acts as Russian Red, Love Of Lesbian and Fuel Fandango as the headliners), and 2nd in Alburquerque (with La Habitacion Roja, Ninos Mutantes, etc.) As the 1st leg would a) coincide with my birthday, and b) present my favorite band Love Of Lesbian along with my wife Tanya’s favorite band Izal, we have decided to attend it anyway. Later it was announced that Russian Red would left the lineup due to her obligations with the Asian mini-tour and would be replaced by Ivan Ferreiro. It was nice news for me cos Ivan is one of my favorite musicians as well.
To get there we should take a pretty long trip: by plane from Moscow to Madrid, and then by car from Madrid airport Barajas 415 km to Badajoz. In sum it should take about 9 hours of pure travelling from point A to point B, in fact it took over 14 hours of our lives so we entered the old town of Badajoz at 05:00 pm of 6th of June being a bit exhausted. Having no time to rest, we run to the historical site of Alcazaba – an ancient castle on the hill by the river Guadiana (that gave the name to vine region DO Ribera del Guadiana - and this is why there is hashtag "contempopranillo" in the heading of my report) shore, where, inside the castle, the Contempopranea fest should take its place. We received our wrist braces in taquilla and then were approached by a woman who tried to ask us about something we were not in touch really. She spoke bad English, we spoke bad Spanish.
Then we had a small amount of time to walk around and see the surroundings.
Burgim
At 8.00 pm we came to Alcazaba to see the 1st band of Contempopranea 2014 - Burgim. Burgim were not great but they were good enough. They have pack of really good songs, and while their appearance onstage still wasn’t one of their strengths their abilities are quite promising and the potential of their music is visible.
Mikel Izal
The next band that should appear before our eyes were Izal. Izal is by all means one of the greatest Spanish bands in terms of stage presence. We missed them last year on Sonorama (in fact, we missed them there even two times – taking in mind their secret concert on the Carson stage) where their show was much lauded. Now we were prepared and successfully moved our bodies right at the security bars before the stage while the audience was not overwhelmingly numerous at that moment. Mikel Izal is the great showman. Not only because he has really great voice but also because onstage is the place where he lives his life. All his stage behavior speaks on this. The band played all the songs that we wanted them to (“Prueba Y Error”, “La Mujer De Verde”, “Panico Practico”, “Magia Y Efectos Especiales” amongst others) and left the place followed by the thunder-like applause.
Sidonie
Earlier this year Sidonie have put to release their new album “Sierra Y Canada” which marked their stylistic move from psychedelic retro-rock of their previous LP “El Fluido Garcia” to electronica-based future pop. I expected them to be play electronica here but otherwise Marc, Jes y Axel, backed up by the live members Marcel (guitar) and Edu (keyboards), were rocking out like a solid rock band. They used MIDI-sequensors and other ‘digital noise generators’ but only for supporting role, not as the main part of the sound palette. Their live program covered all the second part of the band’s career starting from the breakthrough album “La Costa Azul” though the main focus of attention was, for instance, “Sierra Y Canada”. The songs from the album being played with rock instrumentation sounded much better for my taste than they were on the album. When it was all over I considered the show of Sidonie absolutely astonishing on par (or even a bit better) with Izal’s one.
Ivan Ferreiro
Then we came back to hotel to put our tired bodies to rest before the late night show of Ivan Ferreiro cos The Horrors and Maximo Park were none of our interest and it was better for us to sleep a couple of hours than to see these bands. 2.45 am we woke up and without any preparations or make-up or any we walked to Alcazaba again to see Ivan Ferreiro. Like Sidonie before him, Ivan was not concentrated fully on his last record “Val Minor - Madrid” and started the show with “Turnedo” from his first solo album “Las Canciones Del Tiempo Y La Distancia”. Then “Abrazame” from “Las Siete Y La Media” followed. So the show was more like the career-spun tour than the new album presentation. To my surprise, no songs from my favorite Ivan’s album “Picnic Extraterrestre” were played, and there was only one song from “Mentiroso Mentiroso” – “NYC” on which I cried like a child. In his three-piece suit Ivan looked like an alternative version of middle-aged Frank Sinatra. Periodically he played the pianola but mostly he walked over the scene with the strange birdish walk and heroic poses. Under the bottom line, for me as a fan it was great. For Tanya who is not a fan of him, it was some kind of The Great White Spot - something that one could never understand.
