Get Amplifest, a venture festival, weight and discovery – publico

                 

                         
                     

                 

 
                         

In a period of four hours shall be able to listen to black metal adventurer of Altar of Plagues, hypnotic and slow music of William Basinski, the rabid hardcore of Converge and dark electronics WIFE.

                     

                          The fifth edition of Amplifest happens this Saturday and Sunday at the Hard Club, Porto, and so there is room for noise, weight and extreme music, as for background music or electronics, for introspection and silence.

“Or accepted the challenge and provocation or you’ll spend a hard time,” says André Mendes, who along with Angelo Tiberius Carvalho order to Amplificasom, the promoter responsible for the festival. For the organizers, this eclecticism is your greatest asset. “The Amplifest have this pedagogical side, this will open horizons.”

Although there is no strict affiliation to genres, this diversity is controlled. There is a coherence, an idea of ​​programming. Each band or artist is, in its way, music with the blackness and the weight of days. Music that filters neuroses and seeks catharsis, but without being escapist. Music that challenges conventions with exploratory vein.

“If we did this just to sell there was this amount of risk and challenge,” said Andrew. A refreshing philosophy, since most of the Portuguese festivals (and not only) obey more and more a business model in which scarce the surprise and the risk, the possibility of discovering bands you never heard of.

In fact, it’s hard to call the festival Amplifest. There are brands and their promotional activities, which have helped to make the festival a carnival with music. There are concerts overlays, contrary to the rapid consumption and often fragmented. And although there are more household names than others, the bands appear on the posters in alphabetical order and with the same emphasis chart. “It is important. It is to live the experience altogether, “says André Mendes. And this also includes exhibitions, talks, cinema and even the reading of a short story by Jorge Luis Borges.

They can not support, and this prevents them from having profits. But do not lose money thanks to ticket sales and strict management. This equation is essential to success with foreign audience: this edition, 40% of tickets were sold to countries such as Turkey, Russia, France and Germany

There are reasons for this.. It is a unique opportunity to see the Altar of Plagues (Saturday), which will close business, and Amenra (Sunday), which will no longer give concerts. Are two of the great metal innovators:. Opened it to other genres, like experimental music and post-rock, rejecting misogynist, homophobic and manly attitudes, so often associated with this type of music

Today Also we find William Basinski, central composer of environmental and experimental music this century, author of the masterpiece The Disintegration Loops ; the Converge, cult band of hardcore, whose concerts are hurricane-proof stamina; WIFE, draft James Kelly, the Altar of Plagues, which makes the transition from black metal to electronic post-dubstep matrix; Mother and Son, Portuguese accomplished guitarist.

Tomorrow there will be, among others, Metz, noise-punk trio the Sub Pop label, Stephen O’Malley, the unavoidable Sunn O))), and Gnaw Their Tongues, which orchestra horrors with black metal ambiences, the noise, industrial music and contemporary music composers and avant-garde as Luciano Berio and György Ligeti.

Daily tickets for the Amplifest cost € 39 and the pass to the two-day € 59.