Porto's Amplifest Heralded Seasonal Change with a Tide of Innovative Music: 2023 Fest Recap and Photos
As Europe starts to chill to crisp mornings again, Portugal appears to be the adequate destination to warmly transition into the winter torpor. Packing a jacket or not for that trip is a much harder life decision than electing Amplifest as the proper home for further music geekery. The Amplifest team and its boss—André Mendes—like to refer to themselves as the "Amplifamily," and under that inclusive title, they want us to join the celebration of the lineup they have curated with a definite passion. The mighty familial recipe combines the experimental ends of each music genre—mainly metal, but not only.
The festival took place September 22-24, much earlier than in previous years. With its ninth edition, it returned to its regular format after an exceptional two-weekend reunion in 2022. Amplifest remains a weekender and it is essential to consider it that way—as André insisted in our interview [Editor's Note: to be posted later this week!]. The festival is prepared to enjoy a Porto getaway and to bring back bits of the local culture into our cabin luggage ... unless we're flying out to Porto with enough photo gear to play Tetris (talking about a friend … oh hi!).
A few days before the festival, we received the "final final" running order with an extra hour of Sunn O))) and a few premieres are taking place. Amplifest 2023 is becoming even more concrete. The Hexvessel premiere makes people hop on Bandcamp and Luke's freshly released interview with Kvohst brings me to much higher levels of inspiration throughout my airport dread.
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Friday, September 22
A day to unpack and to get familiar with Amplifest surroundings. Picturesque. Since its genesis, the festival has always occurred at Hard Club. The venue is in a two-story crimson-red market hall from the 19th century, fiercely standing in the city center. The landmark is also a convenient first stop for Porto discovery: the Douro riverbanks, the quaint restaurants, the narrow streets, the tiled facades, the street art, and the street music. Postcard-like, even better.
This year, Amplifest enriches itself also geographically, setting foot in additional cultural places in Porto, and the festival program first takes 250 attendees to the Serralves Art Foundation. Locals are keen on recommending this spot as it offers a busy afternoon of modern art and nature viewing. In this very environment, Amplifest and the foundation partner for a co-creation combining Rui Chafes' sculptures and Candura's experimental music.
The get-together then continues in a bar on a buzzing street. The bar itself swarms with Amplifesters, reuniting and discussing in depth the festivals commonly attended in the past year. After a few drinks and many hypotheses about the 2024 lineup, BIG | BRAVE's Mat Ball heavily sustains each note against his amps to deliver a guitar-droning experience through a dense red fog. Although announced as a bar, both the stage set-up and the sound are a good surprise: The venue is fit for this performance.
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Saturday, September 23
Resuming on the amplified notes from the prior day, the BIG | BRAVE trio become an on-edge quartet on stage, opening the first day at 2 p.m. on the Bürostage. They unleash their record Nature Morte, naturally building up on the thick atmosphere punctured by Robin Wattie's temperamental vocals and infuriated phrasing.
The Bearfreaks stage later welcomes Ellereve as its first act, enchanting Portugal with her voice for the first time. The initial acts send a strong message: at Amplifest, all artists are considered equal and given comparable, hour-long sets. The running order flows alternatively on the Bürostage and the Beerfreaks stage, and the festival give us 15 minutes between each concert. Amplifest make it easy for us to attend every performance—Who likes thirst and overlaps, anyway?!
Back to the Bürostage. Ashenspire are an open riot, defending their sophomore album Hostile Architecture at the crossroads of genres and social structures—theatrical yet unconventional, weighty yet quirky, exuberant yet poignant. We're dealing with some glorious fracking mess here that the band is satisfied to acknowledge with a smirk. And with a saxophone, please!
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Likewise, Hetta maintain high energy levels. They are emerging in the Portuguese screamo scene, and they let that be known. The pit doesn't resist the singer's fuel long, as he pushes through the crowd. The relentlessness continues with Mutoid Man, as people start to fill in the venue much earlier. Seeing Stephen Brodsky (Cave In), Ben Koller (Converge), and Jeff Matz (High On Fire) sharing the stage is an event in itself. The super trio support their newest record Mutants, released earlier in the summer. Much, much fun on stage. That is so obvious and straightforward that the crowd follows, fists up in the air.
Heading to Sir Richard Bishop after these few mad hours is strange. Dazzling and intimate, we almost feel too close to the stage now. At least, I'd rather enjoy the show from afar, but Sir Richard Bishop breaks the ice and warmly invites us on his journey. As the minimalistic performance unveils a diverse range of genres, the experience increasingly captivates. His virtuosity is soothing before what's to come.
And what's to come is quite frankly uneasy, if you'd understand a word of French. The noise of it all surely helps in swallowing the pill of an affirmed taste in the abhorrent. Celeste plunge Amplifest into an uncomfortable space. The visual experience echoes the band's music: the light show is pulsating; the red headlamps are anguishing, and when the rare moments of beauty emerge, they are cinematic.
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Hexvessel break their own codes and leaves the foggy woods in a new hooded arrangement. The band and the audience have not fully experienced the new record yet, but Polar Veil is now honestly revealing itself, somewhere between a tribute and a renewal. The folk elements are now wrapped into a 90s-guitar-powered lo-fi black metal, and Mat 'Kvohst' McNerney is the voice warming up our ice-cold lethargy. On my side, I don't feel like breaking the charm by taking many photos ... I guess that says loads.
This ritualistic evening ends with AMENRA. The Belgian band are back at Amplifest in their electric form after an unexpected acoustic set in 2022. "I've seen them a lot of times, but it's so powerful, and the setlist is different each time," someone tells me at the end of the show. And it’s quite a good summary of their performance that night. I'm surprised at the first notes of "Aorte. Nous sommes du même sang" from the Mass IIII record. I think I had not experienced that song live since 2011?! Their performance is familiar—Their wall of sound is blasting; the monochrome movie is rolling out, and the fists are clenched, but in a much rawer and smokeless delivery. It’s emotionally harsh, yet it’s about good energy—finding the light remains the key message here.
The evening ends there for me as Necrø Darkwave close this full day of concerts at 1:30 A.M.
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Sunday, September 24
If we survived this Saturday rollercoaster, we now have to pass the test of Aeviterne's existential death metal. Behind closed doors, the NYC quartet sound already monstrous. Twenty-something masochistic souls attempt to enter the venue without success: "The concert hasn't started yet. This is 'only' the soundcheck!"
Their European debut plunges the Beerfreaks stage into a raw soundscape that marches on us without constraints in an effortless-in-facade yet ruthless performance. Like The Ailing Facade, it requires attention, if not repetition, to fully grasp how the four successfully bring this record to the stage—despite Ian Jacyszyn's explanations in an in-depth interview. Regardless, it's a forward-moving machine that impresses and leaves little behind—The show is short, but I'd gladly call it a day there, paradoxically.
Unfortunately, I can't. Seeing David Eugene Edwards is next, and returning to sentience levels is a challenge. Being human is a challenge. A spell is cast and we might be back, captivated by the hypnotic visuals enhancing each song. I'm actually mesmerized by what I see and hear. The Wovenhand's singer is releasing the new Hyacinth record under his own name, and this very first show holds the promise of a bewitching tour. Is it the result of David Eugene Edwards' shamanic presence, of the new set itself or the sonic and visual contribution of Dehn Sora (Throane, Treha Sektori)...? Surely, an elixir of all of that.
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In a dim room, Hilary Woods runs electronic experiments in anticipation of her self-produced record Acts of Light, due November 3. Divide and Dissolve continue on that experimental flow, challenging sound and social environments. The means of revendication range from a droning wall of amps to a saxophone solo—The sound is big, but the underlying message is love and acceptance. The performance itself is wordless, though words are shared about their aboriginal ancestry and lands. The duo is grateful to be in Porto and it shows powerfully. The singer Takiaya Reed also pays tribute to the third "band member"–Their sound engineer Pedro Subtil—actually from Porto. Next, Esben and The Witch deliver a luminous performance.
KEN Mode up the tempo and the tension. The front rows are getting packed early, and in the pit, folks are sharing their excitement to see the Canadians in Portugal again after 10 years. The band premiere their new song "The Shrike" live, two days after releasing their pandemic-written album VOID, the companion to their previous LP NULL. Their latest release is impacting the noise rock genre again, just like their performance on stage. KEN Mode are visceral. They get us right in our guts, and we shout the lyrics from the bottom of our lungs. It's urgent, and it needs to get out. "We deserve this!"—talking about losing grip, we totally lost it. Later, HIDE unleash their feral self and reveals a lot of anxiety. The soundtrack to it all is industrial and the show is private—So we'll consent to keep it there.
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The festival ends for me with Sunn O))). Earlier in the day, Greg Anderson and Stephen O'Malley were invited to the Amplitalks, one of the two relaxed Q&A sessions with the crowd on the upper floor of Hard Club. Back into the concert hall, their sound shatters our whole being as the Amplifest soundscape expands further with an exceptional two-hour set.
The thick smoke sometimes unveils the hooded duo who communicates esoterically with the crowd, who waves back))) in unison. The light orbs and the laser show elevate their soundwaves to an almost metaphysical dimension. Will that ever make sense? No one knows, and who needs to know anyway. The organic entities from the audience surrender one by one, though. Some even return home immediately, "I've had enough!" The power of their wall of Sunn Model T amps from the 70s floors many souls, as someone tells me once outside: "I'm out the venue for a while now, and my bones are still vibrating. Can you believe it?!"
–Anne Laure / eluluphoto
Keep scrolling for more photos from the fest. For more information on Amplifest, see their website.
Photo credit: elulu photo
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