Date: August, Thursday 13th
Place: Spain, Burgos Province, Aranda de Duero, Plaza del Trigo & Recinto Ferial
Thursday, 13th at midday we came to the heart of Sonorama, the Plaza del Trigo, to start our normal festival life. We were a bit late to get there right at the start of the first performance - the one of Los Nastys. We saw this band live two years ago on Carson camping stage, and they were not so great, honestly speaking - especially being compared to the band that followed them (Sin Rumbo - and they were absolutely perfect). This time Los Nastys performed much better - and though the music was not of our kind, the band was funny and energetic and seemed capable to give the day the right start.
Los Nastys
When Los Nastys came offstage we ran to the Red Bull Tour Bus stage to see what's happening there. The guys from Supertennis were performing. This year Sonorama established close ties to another great summer festival, ContemPOPranea. To visualize these ties both festivals some kind of delegated one band from the roster to the partner. Sonorama delegated Correos, and ContemPOPranea delegated Supertennis. This band played melodic power pop and sounded quite interesting to dig them deeper.
Supertennis
By return to Plaza del Trigo we beheld the lovely show of Nunatak, one more cool band from Murcia. Nunatak became our first true discovery of this Sonorama. I knew nothing about the band, so for me and Tanya they were surprisingly good.
Nunatak
The band's sound was built around more or less traditional folk rock format and incorporated tubes and violin, and their performance was so sparkling that it was absolutely impossible not to fall for.
Right after the show of Nunatak we tried to get in touch with JuanMa Fernandez, el guitarrista de Igloo, who as we knew was somewhere around there. Thanks to the free wi-fi coverage of the most part of old town of Aranda we managed to find him in the crowd. The next band to come on the stage was Analogic - and I have little to tell about them because all through the show of Analogic we talked to JuanMa and rarely looked stageside.
Analogic
After we parted ways with JuanMa (previously making the agreement to meet at VIP zone at night) we went to Red Bull to look at the last band of the morning session - Bye Bye Lullaby, the winners of the DO Ribera del Duero "Talento Ribera" contest. They looked cool and sounded cool, and became one more band to monitor (and I monitor, no kidding - two minutes before I started to write this report I purchased their album on iTunes, and right now I type all these words and phrases listening to it).
Bye Bye Lullaby
The night session started for us from the stage Burgos Origen Y Destino (former Future Stars) and the band Bambikina on it. I found them on Facebook a couple of months before the Sonorama and wanted to see them live. It was folk-based kind of misic again, and Esther Mendez, the frontwoman of the band, was so funny and honest and devoted to what she was doing there. By the way, Burgos Origen Y Destino this year became the full-fledged stage instead of being just pretty small tent.
Bambikina
In the meantime we caught a couple of songs by Marlango on the main stage - it was pleasant enough to stay there for more but Tulsa were 'a must see' for me so we returned to Burgos stage to see Miren Iza and her pals. Tulsa is one of the definitive bands for me as they were the third Spanish band whose music I embraced some years ago, and their album "Solo Me Haz Rozado" I adore much since then. Earlier this year Tulsa released the new album named "La Chica Calma" that marked considerable stylistic change for the band. Now their music is more electronic, more introvert, more somber. Accompanied onstage by the persons of Charlie Bautista and Marti Perarnau caliber, Miren presented to us the set of new songs cross't with a couple of older tracks - and all this turned into definitely one of the best performances of the day. It was really impressive yet laconic.
Then there was another discovery. Naming 'discovery' the band with 20-something career is not so smart for me, but nevertheless I have never ever listened to Australian Blonde before this Thursday. This band really amazed me. Especially their guitarist who appear to be Paco Loco, one of the most renowned indie rock producers of Spain. Now we could see why they called him 'loco' (crazy). From afar he looks like J Mascis, but if J mixes his furious playing with anemic stage behaviour then Paco does everything full throttle. His guitar playing is full of energy, and his appearance is absolutely frenetic - he rarely stops moving more than for a second or two unlike his colleagues including Francisco Nixon, the man behind the mic.
Australian Blonde
Having stopped the headbanging on Australian Blonde we came to VIP zone to have ourselves some wine (this year there were 12 labels of DO Ribera del Duero wine, so one might taste them all and choose the best for his own taste) and to meet JuanMa. After both goals were successfully met we found out that one of the main 'points of interest' of this edition of Sonorama started to take place on the main stage.
The bright and colourful performance named
Morente Live! was a homage to the late flamenco singer and composer
Enrique Morente. In the 90's he was the first classic flamenco musician to make connections to indie rock world, and later
Jota (
Los Planetas) and
Antonio Arias (
Lagartija Nick) became his recurrent companions. After
Enrique had passed away in 2010, his younger daughter
Solea created a band with
Jota and
Antonio to pay homage to
Enrique's large legacy. Initialy an one-off project,
Los Evangelistas turned into something more releasing two albums, touring intensively and experiencing the mutual work with
Youth, one of the most renowned British producers of all time. The show was semantically divided into several acts and started from the classic flamenco. We were not interested in classic flamenco and decided to walk around and just look what's happening here and there. The sounds from Burgos stage caught our attention so we came there again to look at
Los Vengadores.
Los Vengadores were loud, melodic and highly energetic. It was nice because I like loudness, melodicity and high levels of energy.
Los Vengadores
But as the show on the main stage developed, it came farther and farther away from the basic flamenco, gradually incorparting the elements rarely found in the classic genre. So when we returned to Ribera stage there were
Estrella Morente - the eldest daughter of
Enrique,
Solea,
Antonio Arias, Jota along with other
Los Planetas members and a string of classic flamenco musicians. This last part of the show was absolutely spectacular and driving, full with pure emotions and beauty.
Morente Vive! troupe
When the final crescendo was over we stayed before Ribera stage to win ourselves the better places for
Dorian. We met success moving our wine-fueled bodies right at the security bars by the very center of the stage. The waiting period faded fast and we quickly became surrounded by the screeching young females evoking
Marc Gili before their eyes.
Dorian launched the show with the biggest hit single from the "
La Velocidad del Vacio" album - "
Los Amigos Que Perdi". Celebrating the tenth anniversary of band's existence this year, now the band tours in support of the album "
Diez Anos Y Un Dia". If the tracks on the album were arranged in intelligent acoustic key, then live they sounded much louder and considerably more powerful. The guitar sound was predominant throughout the show. As we knew most of the songs on "
Diez Anos Y Un Dia" by heart, we sang them along being definitely not the worst singers in the forefront of the crowd (some chicks by our side were much worse than us). Closer to the end of the show the paper gun was triggered, and we found ourselves placed inside the papercuts blizzard. It looked - and felt - very beautiful and uplifting.
Dorian
It was great but what would come next should be even greater. Earlier this day it was declared that
Dorian would set up the signing session in mercadillo right after the show. Accidentally, we took a couple of
Dorian CDs from home to listen to in the car during our North Spain travel. So we got something to be signed by the band. The only thing that was not prepared for this was me.
I thought that the musicians would stand behind the counter and we would just give them our CDs to sign, and they would sign them in the free-flow mode. In the best case we could say them "Hi!", I supposed. But in fact it wasn't so. We were invited into the space where we could shake hands with them, embrace them, talk to them... It's so sad that I wasn't prepared for this. I was absolutely stunned by the mere possibility of staying behind them so I've almost lost my tongue and felt myself like a fool. All the guys were so welcoming to us, and
Belly was so beautiful and nice... Poor dumbhead me, it could have been much better! Anyway, to meet and greet with one of our favourite high profile bands was the great experience.
After that we just listened to
Dinero from afar, to
Kuve (the band fronted by the younger sister of Second's Sean Frutos) from afar and to
La Habitacion Roja also from afar. The night was done.
The only thing to apologize was the missed performance of Reina Republicana. I planned to see them but it was absolutely impossible due to Dorian show and signing session.
Text: Mikhail
Photo: Tatiana & Mikhail
