After finding my usual spot at the El Rey theater (I may as well move into this place these days), on the right of the stage, close enough to take pictures and comfortable enough to use the edge of the stage to settle my camera and the rest, I was ready for the long evening, since three bands make a long evening.
‘Are you some kind of reporter?’ a friendly middle-aged man just on my right asked me …. ‘Well kind of!’, ‘Do you know the band? My kids are big fans!’ He had come with his whole family so I asked his son what he knew and liked about Portugal. The Man, and he told me that they were four guys from Alaska via Portland and that their music was er… kind of psychedelic (I thought afterwards that the laser effects were more psychedelic than anything else in the music), but he especially told me that they were like…. The Beatles! Wow, to that point?
I can understand they have digested the Beatles, but who hasn’t? I heard some of it in the bright choruses, John Lennon more than any other Beatles? But, all along, I kept hearing Oasis especially on some songs, like ‘People say’ or ‘The Sun’, which ended up into anthemic hooks that each time was engaging the crowd in a sing-along.
Two bands were opening for them, Honeychild, a sextet from Los Angeles who could not believe they were playing at the El Rey as they were throwing many ‘Thank you Los Angeles’ to the crowd between their bouncing happy high-energy songs. With guitars, bass, keyboard, harmonica, banjo, drums, a lot of vocal harmonies and a toe-tapping vibe, they won the crowd very fast, although you could tell many people already knew them well. They had a great energy on stage, a sort of folk-rock with rough riffs hiding poppy tunes.
Then, White Denim, a four piece from Austin Texas, took the stage with something much more experimental, a weird psychedelic-garage-blues rock, all over the place, constantly changing direction, without settling for a specific genre. It was difficult to follow the melody, if there was one, as they were launching exotic rhythms, switching to sparkling effects, accelerating the music in a hypnotic bluesy jazzy kind of way. On stage, they were like a assault delivering their drum driven songs, while adopting at times a sort of military style.
Portugal. The Man has a large following, a young crowd for most of it, and after already 5 studio albums, a release every year since 2006, they keep things in shape. But the young man was right, their music is a little difficult to classify, if there is such thing for music, with elements of blues, pop and a lot of hooks, yeah, hooks are their thing, catchy choruses that make people happy.
But first of all, and I don’t know if it is a new tendency lately after the mind-fucking experience of the Sleigh Bells show, the four of them played in the dark, and used a lot of lights and red and green lasers which made them highly deserve the psychedelic adjective the young man was talking about. The fog machine was also working full time, reflecting on the green laser light, making the whole scenery completely surreal and mind-altering like a LSD trip (at least the idea I have of it). At one point, the laser light decomposed itself in a multitude of little green and red spots, making like a 3-D kaleidoscope, floating in space, caressing people who, of course, loved it. But enough with special effects, although there was a point when they became so distracting you almost forgot about the music, or let’s say that the music became accessory.
I have only seen the face of vocalist and guitarist John Gourley, the rest of the band being most of the time buried in a green dense fog, but they put on an extremely energetic and stimulating show, extending the notion of progressive rock to a visual and high energy experience.
Being quite new in the Portugal. The Man world, I must say their tunes are accessible or even likable at the first listening, something very rare, sometimes a little bit too sing-along style, although I’m not going to denigrate Gourley’s ability to write catchy songs. But the music was not only about these sweet hooks, the long jams between his guitar and Zachary Carothers’ bass went into more hard rocking territory, even fusion jazz, (Mars Volta? Yes that kind of powerful stuff! Santana? Probably a little bit too) and then they turned into these long battles between agitated guitars and spinning lasers, John Gourley facing the drums and fighting the green lights which were shooting him like some manic firing guns.
There was an encore and more of these songs turned into an epic dance between light and music, laser and sound buried in a smoggy atmosphere.
Their recording tracks only give a vague idea of the mad energy they release on stage and it was a strange mix of sugar coated, engaging pop and violent electric toughness. Beatles-esque? May be, but why did I keep hearing Oasis in these choruses? With a better voice, and without the bad attitude.