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| Pharaoh Overlord © Rafael Farias |
PHARAOH OVERLORD – Great concert given by Finnish band Pharaoh Overlord afternoon Sunday on palco Piscina on the last day of the Millhões. The band is no less than the five Circle’s members (that have played Milhões two days ago), this time with a different posture and sound proposal. They wandered, carburazing for an hour between four themes carved with wisdom and enlightenment, and at the same time with the simplicity of the essential and the strict discipline with which they played. Of strong krautrock inclination (all the rhythms were from the motorik), there was a careful and laborious execution by strings, within the aesthetic logic mentioned above of stretching to the maximum the possibilities of creation, largely by improvisation (this was, confirmed to me by guitarist Jane Westerlund). The result was expected that is, the continuous sensation of being on a mental journey through the Cosmos, between the environmental and the psychedelic, where at times because of slight alterations of intensities, mainly by tonal alteration of the bass, explosions of energy are described. Music to be listened to preferably with closed eyes and swinging the body to its rhythm. In the end, the quintet was effusively applauded by the audience and the musicians also showed their contentment for a performance at all levels exemplary. At Milhões my early afternoons are always good.
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| Johnny Hooker © Rafael Farias |
JOHNNY HOOKER – The greatest magic, sometimes larger than life itself, occurred splendidly late Sunday afternoon on palco Piscina. Johnny Hooker, the Pernambuco native that is making a rage and conquering the "world" in a meteoric fashion, renewing current MPB, is a star more luminous than the Sun, and for whom I lack adjectives to describe it. For that very reason, I will not do it, urgently inviting those who do not know it yet, know him as his music to get to know it. Listening to his voice, rarest in its excellence, less than a meter from his presence, where all his rebellion is exposed in his courageous and audacious transgressive performance, is an experience that, when his name will be referred to in the future, I will never Forget. Johnny Hooker is an activist of the Brazilian LGBT movement, assumed homosexual, and through his lyrics and songs is giving rise to a whole controversial context of support, but also of fierce protest with which he is growing in public exposure and media levels. The Brazilian, a mix between David Bowie, Madonna and Caetano Veloso, as he himself describes his greatest influences, that made him what he is today, is one of those chosen, through his art, to change small worlds, since nobody changes the World. His success already proves it. One might ask: but is it because he is gay and a LGBT activist, or does this recognition lies only in his artistic side? I have concluded from his extraordinary, already legendary concert at Milhões that it is both. Also from a brief informal conversation with the artist, but if he has to be just one of them, the answer is: the art. No one is adored or appreciated without a gift; without some level of quality. And that Johnny Hooker has in spades for decades to come. Currently, he is already the future of MPB. Many thanks Milhões for placing putting him on the line-up. Concerts like this save the day ... P.S. : I was never a Bowie's fan and never understood the worship that more than half of the world has for his Ziggy Stardust phase. Now I understand them.
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| The Heliocentrics © Renato Cruz Santos |
THE
HELIOCENTRICS – This English band is, of all the ones that I have in Milhões
the easiest one to be described regarding their sound. They are absolutely all
that one wants to glue to them when it comes to genres (except rock'n'roll,
blues, punk and metal); that aside, here, anything goes. They are jazz,
experimental, electronic, folk, krautrock, environmental, psychedelic, funk,
trip-hop, world music ... anyway, the group has practically no stylistic
borders and it is impossible to catalog them with one genre. The band clearly
assumes this aesthetic attitude of not having an aesthetic, but several. In the
show they played on palco Milhões, I identified the played themes an insistence
on trip-hop, jazz, space-rock textures and mantric voices (with many
similarities to the folkloric chorus The Mystery of Bulgarian Voices) ... but
others come to mind. The group consists of excellent musicians who guarantee
consistency and a remarkable involvement of their themes. And its singer, Just
B, the one upon whom all the attention is concentrated, develops an elegant and
restrained performance; without major changes. She expresses herself more with
the voice than with the body. Here there is clearly a defined posture. They
gave a great concert, where the psychedelic aesthetics/ trip to the Cosmos images
projected in the background scenery fully worked out as an adjuvant of the
music. Between themes the audience always showed its it was pleased. In the
end, with insistent applause the band returned to an encore of a theme. Of all
the bands I saw it the first time I watched one in Milhões. Totally deserved.
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| Os Tubarões © Renato Cruz Santos |
OS
TUBARÕES – The legendary and veteran Cabo Verde group was a sure choice to end
Milhões in celebration the Millions on the stage with the same name. Very well
known in our culture for its popularity among our fellow countrymen and others,
derived in great part by the cultural and affective ties that unite the two countries
in the pre and post Portuguese decolonization, afterwards and until now by the
reality of the immigration of its citizens to our country, the group of Cidade
da Praia does not require great presentations. Everyone knows (at least) that
they are one of the major representatives of funaná, coladeras and mornas,
inside and outside CaboVerde. Therefore, ambassadors. I retained two aspects
that pleased me a lot from the concert: their music is completely up-to-date,
modern in its interpretation, in a way that surprised me a lot. I confess I was
initially going with the pre-conceived idea that something vintage and dated
might be heard, given the age of its members; it did not happen at all. I found
them profoundly magical interpreting the mornas. There were moments when I had
shivers, what a strange thing ... I think it's nostalgia. Musicians of
excellence and very good taste in the execution of the arrangements of the
themes, and a magnificent voice, with a warm and distinctive tone, with a very
accurate alignment of themes, it was not difficult to grab the audience from
the first theme until the end. They were allowed to do as they pleased with the
audience, and it showed visible in the way the audience already reacted to their
movements: funaná and coladeras: immediate dancing; mornas: sighs and a tear
... It was with a ball of enormous quality with which Milhões toasted everyone
present. Everybody was dancing where there was room for it, it was beautiful to
watch it. And for the second time, I attended the second encore of a band at
the festival. Milhões 2018 ended with a flourish.
words: Guilherme Lucas (freely translate
by Raquel Pinheiro); photos: Rafael Farias & Renato Cruz Santos.
original text: https://www.facebook.com/events/880971952100146/permalink/957108184486522/
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