Originally posted in Valkyrian Music.
July and this was the first time this year that I’ve worked with Prime Artists. They’ve promoted several gigs lately but all in Lisbon and I haven’t had the chance to cover those almost 200 mi. And even though it makes sense to promote a show in a more central, strategic city like the capital, after last night I start wondering if it isn’t also related to the conditions offered by the venues. Hard Club, seriously, what the hell happened to you?! After GHOST, last November, I thought you’d realized it was time to do something about the sauna-temperatures that place can achieve. You indeed bought huge fans to help the AC system in its job, but unless you actually turn them on… And you may think that I’m overreacting, that just a couple of lines on the subject would suffice, but when a band like GOJIRA is playing a sold-out show and it’s forced to shorten the set because the musicians are close to passing out due to the heat, yeah, a whole paragraph on Hard Club’s greed and lack of professionalism is appropriate.
In thick smoke, strobe lights and louder-than-hell roars, Gojira took the stage with “Toxic Garbage Island” – and from the very first second to the last, the crowd gave a new meaning to the words enfants sauvages. They were restless ven during the tribal drum solo of Mario Duplantier, clapping their hands to the rhythm nonstop.
When Joe Duplantier addressed the audience, apart from the little pleasantries that he knew how to say in Portuguese, he said they loved our country and compared the city of Porto to a fairy-tale. Later he would mention the UEFA Euro 2016, saying “congrats on the final”, and as France had beaten Germany minutes before the show, he said how the victory would be good to France, given all the social-economical crisis their country was going through. We didn’t take it bad – there wasn’t a single whistle or boo – but the way “POR-TU-GAL! POR-TU-GAL!” echoed through the venue, showed him we weren’t keen on letting them win easily.
“Shooting Star” would end the show after about one hour and a quarter, with Mario stage-diving into the eager crowd. “Explosia” should have been the last, but they couldn’t take the heat any longer, as aforementioned. Still, band and audience left “hot club” (as Joe called it) with their hearts full.
Front Row Forever 