Madredeus

After a lovely meal at a little Italian place on Bread Street, Anne and I went to the Usher Hall tonight, for what turned out to be a quite brilliant concert.

Madredeus, Portugal’s finest – two hours of some of the most beautiful music you might hope to hear. The line up is two classical guitars, acoustic bass, synthesiser and divine lead vocals. Here’s some info on the band I found on the net:-

"Their music combines fado influences with modern folk music and the founding members were Pedro Ayres Magalhães (Classical Guitar), Rodrigo Leão (Synthesiser), Francisco Ribeiro (Cello) and Teresa Salgueiro (Vocals).

Magalhães and Leão formed the band in 1985, Ribeiro joined in 1986. They'd been searching for a female singer, and found Teresa Salgueiro in a Lisbon night club. Teresa liked their music and agreed to join, so in 1987 Madredeus (named that because they started playing in the Lisbon Abbey named Madre de Deus) recorded their first album, Os dias da Madredeus with Gabriel Gomes playing accordian.

In 1993, Pedro Ayres Magalhães left the band temporarily and was replaced in live concerts by José Peixoto(Classical Guitar). After Magalhães rejoined the group, it became a sextet with two guitarists.

In 1994 Rodrigo Leão left the band to start a solo career, being replaced by Carlos Maria Trindade (Synthesiser). The band continued to release albums and became very popular in Portugal, but remained relatively unknown outside the country.

This changed in 1995 when Wim Wenders, impressed by their music, asked Madredeus to score his documentary about Lisbon called Ainda -Lisbon Story. The soundtrack gave the band international fame.

In 1997 Francisco Ribeiro and Gabriel Gomes left the band as Madredeus' style started abandoning its fado roots with the release of O Paraíso. At this time Fernando Júdice (Acoustic Bass) was invited to join them, to form the current lineup, again a quintet, now comprising Salgueiro, Magalhães, Peixoto, Trindade and Júdice."

Discography
1987 Os Dias da Madre Deus
1990 Existir
1992 Lisboa (live in Lisbon)
1994 O Espirito da Paz
1995 Ainda (soundtrack from Lisbon Story)
1997 O Paraíso1998 O Porto (live in Porto)
2000 Antologia (a compilation of 'best of' material)
2001 Movimento
2002 Euforia (live in Brussels with orchestra)
2004 Um Amor Infinito
2005 Faluas do Tejo

I have all these albums except “Faluas do Tejo", which I didn’t even know existed until tonight – I’ve just bought it on e-bay from Argentina for about £7 incl P&P.

When I bought the tickets for Anne and I, I was worried the hall might be empty as no-one in the UK appears to have heard of the band. The fact that we got centre seats in row 2 was also a worry.

But I was wrong, the hall was packed – although the audience must have been around 60-70% foreign, loads of Portuguese. Some people seemed to have flown into Edinburgh especially for the gig which was one of the quietest I’ve ever attended (music wise) which leads me to add a word or two about digital cameras and phones.

Why do people watch large chunks of a concert thru their phone/camera?? Why do said devices have to have annoying little bleeps and tunes to let their stupid owners know they’ve taken a picture – presumably there’s a way of muting these sounds and the users haven't worked it out??

As Oscar Wilde so aptly put it “”Hell is other people (with noisy digital cameras and mobile phones)”.

Great concert – buy a Madredeus CD now from e-bay – there’re tons there - I’d recommend for starters “O Espirito da Paz”, “O Paraíso”, “Antologia”, “Movimento” and “Um Amor Infinito”. And for a different take on their music, get “Electronica” a remix CD by various famous DJs and producers from around the world including the great Craig Armstrong…..

Here ends the plug from the Madredeus Appreciation Society….

As a bonus, when we got home, the Iain Ballamy CD I bought on Monday on e-bay was behind the door. It includes a great version of one of my all time favourite sixties tracks, Jacky's "White Horses".

I stayed up very late (3 o'clock) writing this blog and tranferring the remaining albums from my previous jukebox to the new one, along with recent purchases, Procol Harum, Coldplay, Iain Ballamy, Bach et al....

I always change the post time to 11:59 to get the dates right...