#Sonorama20. Interlude. The 5 Years Rankings

As this was our fifth Sonorama (some kind of a jubilee) I'd like to select some best events we witnessed for these years.

Top10 performances on secondary stages (including Plaza del Trigo that should in no way be considered secondary):

10. Love Of Lesbian – 2016, Plaza del Trigo (concierto secreto)

09. The Handicaps – 2013, Red Bull

08. Sin Rumbo – 2013, Carson Camping

07. Igloo – 2013, Plaza del Trigo

06. Yo, Estratosferico – 2017, La Carpa Meetin Arts

05. La Habitacion Roja – 2015, Plaza del Trigo (concierto secreto)

04. Disciplina Atlantico – 2016, Burgos

03. Ninos Mutantes – 2014, Plaza del Trigo (concierto secreto)

02. Havoc – 2015, Burgos

01. Maryland – 2014, Plaza del Trigo. The best ever concert I witnessed in my whole fucking life.

Top5 discoveries:

05. Proyecto Solaz

04. The Bright

03. Bestlife (Under Your Seat)

02. Correos

01. Joe La Reina

Accidentally, all of them are of the year 2014. I hope this year's discoveries (Yoyo Banana, Tierra Vertical and Molina Molina) will enter the next rankings successfully passing the test of time.

Top5 of our fails:

05. 1st night of Sonorama 2013 when we tried to enter recinto ferial with our Canon D450 in the bag and they didn't let us go.

04. Our unawareness of conciertos secretos (2013) as there were nobody to tell us about.

03. Wrong place for Rufus T. Firefly (Plaza del Trigo, 2015) in the epicentre of watergun wars.

02. Never being present on all the accompanying events (breakfasts, visits to bodegas, tastings, etc.)

01. Totally missed concierto secreto that followed the aforementioned Rufus' performance - that one with Zahara, Xoel Lopez, Sidonie, Angel Stanich and others.

#SonoramaRibera2014. The Report. Day 3, 15.08.2014. Minutes of glory

The program of the third day should start again on Plaza del Trigo with the set of The Handicaps. We saw The Handicaps last year on Red Bull Tour Bus and they caught our attention by their energy, good pack of melodies and unconventional use of stage railings and mic stands as the tools to play their guitars. So The Handicaps were 'must see' for us.

The Handicaps

Their set was as energetic and melodic as it had been a year ago, and we were standing right before the stage at its middle, but for us the performance was a bit spoiled by the fact that we hardly could hear the vocals (I suppose that the stage monitors were tuned this way to provide the far-standing persons with the wall of sound cos it seemed like for those behind us everything was OK). In terms of stage presence The Handicaps rocked as hell. Would like to see them again.

They were folowed by the four-piece Perro - the band from Murcia who play loud rock that has strong ties to hardcore but is not hardcore itself. Their uncommon feature is doubled drum section - yes, with two drummers. Additionally, the guitarist and the bass players shared the vocal duties and switched their instruments. We moved to the left (for us) corner of Plaza del Trigo to hide from the scorching sunlight - and there vocals were OK. Perro were bold, cocky and perky. The people on Plaza raved for them.

Perro

The next band were Correos, another alternative rock band. I was not familiar with them at all, never heard anything of them before. But they were equally cool, loud and melodic. One more band to follow or even to fall for.

Correos

After their set we met again with Javier Ajenjo. And what followed next almost drove me absolutely mad. Javier took me onstage right in front of the crowd and then introduced me to all of the people there, to all of these happy faces on the square and nearby streets. it was only for 30 seconds max but it was definitely the most heartwrenching moment of my life. The crowd even chanted my name! I'm a shy person but it was fantastic. If it was unbelievable for me to met a person who knows about the mere existence of my blog, or to hug with the fest director/musician from the band that I adore - then what was THIS? It was... I don't know. Maybe if I'm dying at 70 there wouldn't be any comparable moment for the rest of my life (unfortunately, I can't find any foto documenting this moment).

And after that the 'secret show' of Ninos Mutantes started. Plaza del Trigo stage is famous for such the surprises. Last year there was the secret show of Supersubmarina where the band played their own songs but finished them with somebody else's tunes. Now Ninos Mutantes made a set of covers that included Pixies, Depeche Mode and, again, Raphael's "Como Yo Te Amo". The only song of their own was "Errante".We were standing backstage 10 feet behind the musicians so I didn't dare to shout out the words of "Where Is My Mind" or "Errante" staying so close.

Ninos Mutantes from backstage

The opening act of the evening/night set were The Three Generations. I'd been listening to their album "Pillage" pretty regularly a couple of years ago. Live they were driving and cohesive but we left them in favor of Jack Knife. We missed this band last year on Plaza del Trigo - and as far as I knew from the reports and chronicles they set the Plaza on fire. So I would like to see them on much larger venue. And I'd rather consider this a loss. No, the band was OK - but Ribera stage seemed too large for them, and the audience seemed not to be so numerous. On the closed space of Plaza del Trigo surrounded by buildings the sound is more narrowly directed than on wide area of recinto ferial, and the spectators are so close one to another that they can almost strike the sparks by the collisions of their bodies. Maybe now they gathered the same amount of people - but here before the main stage it seemed like the lack of people.

The Three Generations

Jack Knife

Later we went to Castilla stage to see El Hombre Gancho. Before Sonorama I've checked them on youtube and found them good enough to go and see them. I made no mistake - El Hombre Gancho were fine. The band members looked like the old school latino-rockers but their music had nothing in common with old school latino-rock.

El Hombre Gancho

We stayed with them for 6 or 7 songs and we'd like to stay more but we should leave to win ourselves a better place before Ribera to see Second. Second are on tour with the last year's album "Montana Rusa", and now they're touring with the tiny classic orchestra. The participation of the orchestra is limited, it does not prevail on sound but makes the songs more colourful and bright. Second were in the perfect form. The band did not concentrate on the songs from "Montana Rusa" and played almost all the best songs from the last three albums. Overall, it was an astonishing show. "No, THAT was the best concert in my life", said I when it was over.

Second with the orchestra

After Second we came to VIP zone to drink wine and stayed there for awhile listening to DePedro from afar.

The whole show of Amaral we were watching from 'zona privado' of the VIP zone. Eva Amaral is another controversial person of this edition of Sonorama. She was one of the first headliners penned for the fest, and it was met with mixed reaction from fans due to Amaral and her band are on the far pop wing of Spanish rock music. Despite this fact she has good connections within the indie world, and her performance was much lauded anyway.

Amaral

If the performance of Leon Benavente that we say a year ago was absolutely outrageous, the new one seemed to be more controlled. All this year me and Tanya were listening to Leon Benavente's releases (self-titled LP and EP "Todos Contra Todos") so their set took no surprises for us in itself. But every performance of the band is a must by default - so great they are.

Leon Benavente

On the song "Ser Brigada" we started to break out of the crowd to run for Izal, but there was no place to run because another crowd was already there. We stuck somewhere in the middle without clean perspective to get closer to Tanya's favourite band. It was the first time for us when we could not manage to get to the security bars right at the stage - the good planning did not work well when the target shows were going back to back.

Mikel was bright and spectacular as always. We knew all the songs by heart and were just dancing and shouting the lyrics in the air. Needless to say that we were absolutely happy.

Izal from afar

At 2 a.m. we started to pave our way back home but before we walked away we listened to a couple of songs by Reptile Youth. It was enough to consider Reptile Youth not our piece of pie.

Summarizing the emotions, it was a great day for us. The greatest day. But it could be even better if we would attend the set of Cosmen Adelaida that was impossible due to coincidence with Izal.

Sonorama Ribera 2013. The Report. Day 1, 15.08.2013. The arrival, the first impressions and disappointments

Sonorama is a multiple-staged festival with the daily schedule for almost 30 bands. In 2013 it had 7 stages divided for 3 units:

1. Old town unit: 2 stages - Plaza Del Trigo & Red Bull Tour Bus located in the old town of Aranda with operating time starting in midday.

2. Campus unit: 1 stage - Carson Camping located in the Park of General Gutierrez with operating time starting at 5 p.m.

3. Main unit: 4 stages - Ribera del Duero, Castilla y Leon Es Vida, FutureStars & Carpa Electronica in the 'recinto ferial' starting at 7 p.m.

The 1st day had something to offer us:

Plaza del Trigo: The Girondines, full, Pasajero.
Red Bull: Mine!, Para Normales, Los Zigarros.

Carson Camping: Los Nastys, Sin Rumbo.

FutureStars: Drow, 84, The Handicaps, Sexy Zebras, Santos, Autumn Comets, Kuve, Los Maranones, Klein.

Castilla y Leon: Los Tiki Phantoms, Solea Morente y Los Evangelistas, Mucho, Triangulo de Amor Bizzarro.

Ribera del Duero: Luis Brea, Jaime Urrutia, Belle & Sebastian, Loquillo, Mendetz

The most interesting ones from this list for us were, definitely, full, Los Tiki Phantoms, Mucho and Autumn Comets, not to mention Solea Morente y Los Evangelistas - the project of the daughter of the passed flamenco performer Enrique Morente and the supergroup Los Evengelistas consisting of the members of such the renowned bands as Los Planetas and Lagartija Nick.

First of all, the timeslot of our arrival in Madrid - plus time we should spend for driving from Madrid to Milagros, plus time we should spend for accomodation in the hotel - made the gig of full undistinguishable for us. 

First time in Aranda

So when we finally came to Aranda and entered the gate of old town there was some band playing on the Red Bull Tour Bus stage (and it was really the top of the tour bus as the scene) at the time when no one should be playing at all. And this band (unnamed for us) was really cool.

Me & the band on the bus top

The guys played fast as hell but melodic guitar-driven garage-like rrrrock using the microphone stands and the stage protection bars (preventing the musicians from falling from top of the bus to the ground) as the tools for playing their guitars at the final part of their gig.

Only the band

5 minutes on the festival, 1 and 1/2 songs - and I was already in love with this place!

The band finalized their show with the loud feedback drones and we came along the narrow brick-paved street to find the Plaza del Trigo stage empty.

That was OK but we had at least one problem - we did not know at all where to go to convert our printed confirmations of tickets purchase into the wrist tapes which should be used for the tickets. There were lots of people around who had already obtained them - but I was in trouble formulating the question even in Russian. ''Donde podemos..." - what?

We decided to follow the crowd, and the crowd appeared to approach the Park of General Gutierrez. At the gate to the park I noticed a guy and a girl who were unmistakingly defined as the servicemen. Pulling the printed tickets off my bag I run to them, shouting my famous ''Donde podemos...?" And somehow it worked. The guy have shown me the right direction adding the misterious term 'taquillas'. Despite my some nervous state of mind I understood almost 100% of his speech (except the aforementioned 'taquillas') and we followed the specified direction to find (from the 2nd attempt) the magic 'taquillas' which appeared to be the wooden booth with the smiling girls inside. One of the girls have made for us all we needed at the moment and we left the place absolutely happy with our white-and-silver wrist tapes on returning to the park to look at the bands Los Nastys & Sin Rumbo.

Tanya with the smiling girl in taquillas

Happy

Happy 2

The park was crowded with the tourist tents and the young people mostly slightly drunk on cheep beer and calimocho, the mix of red wine and cola.

Los Nastys didn't impress us at all. They played garage rock mixed with the light-weight version of latinocore, and they tried to diversify it with the convoluted bass lines, but the picturesque-looking bass player missed the timing too often, and the band sounded disorganized at times. Their 40-minutes set away, we were sitting on a bench awaiting the band Sin Rumbo who, as I had known from youtube, got at least one good song in their back catalogue.

Los Nastys

Sin Rumbo came onstage and started playing. During the 1st song Tanya came close to the stage to make some photos of the band. When she returned we looked on each other and both said 'Let's go dancing' because the band was really great. Not to say 'they got one good song' - they had no bad songs at all! The music was melodic, driving, cohesive and well-performed. The guitarist who looked as the twin brother of my good pal Danil Senchishin made the high jumps never missing a stroke. The guys were really cool and their show made us feel so happy we never thought we could be. And it was only the early evening!

Sin Rumbo

But the things went absolutely wrong a little bit later when we followed our steps to the 'recinto ferial' to enter the main stages territory. At the entrance we were banned for possession of the photo camera Canon EOS 60D which was considered 'professional'. We left our car too far to run to it, leave the camera and then come back - and while there were not so many bands interesting for us to perform at night we decided to return to the hotel to have the supper, drink some wine and have a good sleep before facing the next day which seemed to be much more eventful for us with the trip to Valladolid and the string of sets in the main unit of the fest.

P.S. The band we saw at the Red Bull revealed to be The Handicaps.