Weekend Hits And Misses
HIT: Hustling at pool
The evening started with a friend’s birthday drinks at a snooker club in Príncipe Real. I’m not a crack shot, but I did play a lot of pool at university so I reckoned I’d be able to hold my own. I also didn’t want to talk myself up, though, so I spent quite a while watching the other birthday attendees playing - very badly, in my opinion. And indeed, when it came to my first turn, I potted two balls in a row and retired in a shower of glory. (OK, a handful of people were mildly impressed and the rest paid no attention. But insert sassy emoji man here.)
I jumped ship to go to the first party of the evening, but not before noting that the pool hall is open 24 hours a day - future late-morning afters location sorted…
HIT: Beija Flor dance party
This was the second edition of a new party in Lisbon, Beija Flor, run on the Loft model that Beauty & The Beat and Lucky Cloud have been so successful with in London. When I first moved to Lisbon I went to a series of parties run by my then-housemate along similar lines at a funny private venue called Casa Da Avó over the river in Cacilhas. I remember having a fabulous time dancing to all sorts of music in a comfortable setting - it really was a grandmother’s house, with a bedroom and kitchen and magazines from the 1970s.
This party was a little more official, taking place in an established venue - Fábrica Braço da Prata - though the organisers preserved some of the domestic feel by putting their hi-fidelity soundsystem in the library. Lined with books and enhanced by mood lighting and drapes hung from the ceiling, to my eyes the room took on a faintly carnivalesque vibe: big top meets reading room, with plant fronds emerging from between the shelves.
I’m not sure who was playing when I arrived but their mix of percussion-heavy music from the Southern hemisphere sounded fabulous coming out of the four speaker stacks, and there was plenty of space to throw some shapes. Then my aforementioned housemate, TROL2000, came on and played his trademark mix of early synth and italo along with other satisfying oddities. Favourites from Patrick Cowley (‘Sea Hunt’ - “This is on my funeral playlist!” said a friend) and Arthur Russell (‘That’s Us/Wild Combination’) put a broad smile on my face, as did a series of mind-bendingly strong gin and tonics from the utterly chaotic bar.
I demurred when offered the similarly mind-bending apricots that are an obligatory offering at these kinds of parties, but maybe next time I’ll indulge…the Fábrica library is a fantastic setting for a real trip, and I’m looking forward to the next one already.
MISS: Lux crowds
Though I didn’t know it at the time, it was a mistake to leave the comfortable dancefloor of Beija Flor for the confines of the Lux disco. But it had been months since I went to the club and I was determined to catch a bit of Cinthie for the first time. When I arrived around 4.30am the queue was snaking right through the car park, and the first thing I had to do on entry was peremptorily ignore the bouncer’s instruction to leave my backpack in the cloakroom. I was not going to wait in line behind about 30 other people, so I surreptitiously took the bag upstairs, where I bumped into my friend Jorge and we decided to brave the downstairs floor. It was totally rammed.
As usual there was only one thing for it: forge a path to the front right corner, which to this day remains something of an enclave for Lux’s regulars and The Gays. Once there, we staked our claim on a tiny patch of dancefloor in front of the speaker and bopped around a bit to the functional upbeat house Cinthie was playing - fun but somewhat predictable during the short time I was there. Perhaps if I’d been high I could have withstood the crowds for longer, but the moment I started to need the toilet and a drink I realised I wasn’t going to stay any longer in those conditions, so I forged a path back out again and into the night.
MISS: Doing a Doctor Foster in the Lux car park
As I left Lux I walked through the car park, past the throng still queueing outside, looking at my phone to check the night bus schedule. It was going to be a bit of a wait but I had my headphones with me so I strode on towards the bus stop, still looking at my phone. Then, DISASTER.
A storm drain at the edge of the car park, its protective grating partially broken, sat open-mouthed, ready to accept passing offerings such as my unsuspecting left leg. I went in up to my knee: jeans leg, shoe and sock all soaked in days-old rainwater and who knows what else. I made an executive decision not to look or smell too closely. I also realised that there was no way I could bring myself to either board a bus or inflict this sopping, smelly mess on an uber driver. Only one option seemed acceptable: the 35-minute walk home, in this instance a true walk of shame, albeit - luckily - largely unobserved in the wee small hours. (Wee, perhaps, being the operative word.)
I got home, undressed and stuck my jeans, socks and - boldly, in retrospect - my shoes in the washing machine for a quick 15 minute cycle and promptly fell asleep on my bed with the lights on.
HIT: Rosalia in Lisboa
During the Beija Flor party on Saturday night I decided to take a punt on a spare ticket for Rosalia at the Altice Arena on Sunday evening. I didn’t know any of her music, but the prospect of a big arena concert - my first ever, in fact - for the bargain price of 40€ was too good to pass up. I would also be going with a group of Rosalia die hards so I figured some of their energy would rub off on me. And indeed it did, as I was serenaded with her greatest hits at the pre-drinks and began to get quite excited. We arrived at the arena about 45 minutes before the scheduled start time and found a comfortable spot near the back of the standing area, strategically close to a bar and the toilets and with enough space to stretch out.
30,000 people is a lot of people, and it was the first time I’d been in a crowd that big for an indoor music event. We couldn’t really see the stage and I began to worry about seeing and hearing properly, though I was assured the big screens would take care of that. They really did, as the cameras stationed in the tech deck and one cameraman on stage captured both long and close-up shots throughout, which were broadcast across the three large screens in a range of colours and effects. As for the sound, there were large speaker racks hanging from the ceiling of the arena halfway down the space, but unfortunately these didn’t really seem to be adding to the sound coming from the front, so although it was mostly clear it lacked a bit of oomph.
I had been told Rosalia has a thing for motorcycles, and probably the highlight of the production was her sci-fi outfit - part biker and part bikini - and the moment when her dancers formed a human motorcycle for her to pretend to ride. Couples in the audience wearing biker jackets also added a sexy edge to proceedings, besides the fact that apparently the entirety of Lisbon’s gay population seemed to be present - and plenty of Spain’s too.
(NB this is not my video nor do I appear in it - I’m about 7cm out of shot to the left.)
Early highlights were ‘Bizcochito’ - to which everyone chanted along - and ‘La Fama’, a Weeknd collaboration sans Weeknd. (Later there was a flash of ‘Blinding Lights’, perhaps to make up for that.) Rosalia played guitar, then piano, chatting to the audience in between songs first in a kind of Portuñol and then just in Spanish. I couldn’t make out a word of what she was saying and put it down to my very bad Spanish, but none of the Portuguese people I was with could understand her either. No matter, she had a presence on stage that overcame any communication barriers, and her image projected in duplicate and triplicate on the screens behind her made her look like a real movie star. And yes, there was a wind machine.
For me the more stripped down moments hit hard, like an unadorned ‘Perdóname’, the piano singalong of ‘Hentai’ (with a bizarre Windows XP backdrop), or when the dancers hitched an extravagant black train to the back of her biker outfit for a passionate rendition of ‘De Plata’. However, as one song melted into the next at a surprising pace, I couldn’t help feel that the set was one long meander, nothing really sticking out for too long. Obviously if I knew the music this might not have been a problem, but at a certain point I found myself wishing for something more substantial to hold on to - a banger that lasted longer than three minutes, a sense of flow between songs, anything to give it more structure.
Conscious that 30,000 people would shortly all be trying to get home, and with legs tired and somewhat bruised from the previous night’s adventures, I decided to cut my losses and duck out shortly after ‘Malamente’. This was one of the many amazing beats it’s clear she has, but also a tune that - to my ears at least - fails to take that beat and run with it. The production of the show felt high impact yet spare, complementing the music but perhaps coming off a little budget-conscious - I guess unsurprising given the times we are living through. But whatever my misgivings, I was wowed by Rosalia’s performance and vocals (on point throughout) and the hold she had over the audience.
So…Justin Bieber next?