The international festival season is slowly gaining momentum. Due to the weather, the first dates are still limited to exotic venues in the desert, such as Coachella in Palm Springs. Or they are distributed largely “indoors” across a city’s clubs and pop-up locations, as is currently the case at c/o pop in Cologne.
But you can also climb into the warm volcanic spring of the Terra Nostra Park on the Azores island of Sao Miguel and listen to TREMOR’s avant-garde program. Probably the most extraordinary festival in Europe has been taking place in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean since 2013 in the first week of April. Among music fans on the Portuguese mainland, Tremor has long been considered an extremely cool tip for the beginning of spring, which awaits here with a mild 17 degrees. Not too cold, not too warm. Rapidly changing weather conditions meet evergreen cattle pastures and lush vegetation. A remix from Ireland and Hawaii, a two-hour flight from Porto or Lisbon.
The 2022 edition is a reboot after the pandemic wave that also paralyzed the distant seven-island archipelago. Now the Tremor team is back to exchange, between fans and musicians, but also between people and nature. The idiosyncratic concept in the La Bamba record shop was conceived by Luis Banzeres, the “most western of Europe”, as he remarks with a smile.
“The biggest star is the festival itself”
Located in a side street in the island’s main town of Ponte Delgada, the vinyl shop is the organizational headquarters, ticket office and at the same time a venue for bar stool concerts or workshops. The Norwegian folk-jazz electronic musician Hanne Hukkelberg opened this year’s round with a charming chamber concert. “The total ghost town used to be popular here often enough,” says Banzares. “We wanted to advance the island and use the most diverse spaces and natural areas. Without the usual tourism ideas with huge cruise ships and tour groups. Instead, a dialogue with art and pop culture.”
Together with the operators of the indie label “Lovers and Lollypops” from Porto, Joachim Duraes and Marcio Laranjeira, Banzares masters moderate growth without headliner mega fees and huge stages. The around a thousand festival tickets for 60 euros are now selling effortlessly. International guest performances are also possible through funding programs (the Azores are applying for the European Capital of Culture 2027). “Most musicians understand what we are building here. The biggest star is the festival itself!” says Banzares.
He points to Sonic Youth mastermind Thurston Moore, who spent a few months on Sao Miguel a few years ago. For writing and composing. The Azores as a residence for international indie musicians is a vision for the future. After all, the information pillars in the port of Ponta Delgada say “The World comes through here”, which refers to the long-gone history of the ocean liners and propeller planes that made stopovers here on their way to America. Tremor aims to open a new chapter in this long Traveler saga.
Volcano hikes during the day, sound experiments in the evening
The proven cross-genre mix of styles will also be part of the official line up in 2022. For example, crossover jazz musician Alabaster DePlume from London, Moroccan border crosser Taqbir, Portuguese singer-songwriter Maria Reis. Pop to discover. or the meeting between the Lisbon-based transgender artist Odete and Ece Canlı. Pop and avant-garde to discover.
Everyday life at the festival is tranquil. You sit in the “Cafe Central” and sip a Galao and set off on one of these special trails as part of the sister project Terra Incognita. The bus shuttle takes you along a winding country road to the devil’s waterfall. A sound hike with a borrowed MP3 player through the lush botany around Lagoa dei Fogo. Finally, a concert on a green meadow. The mixer is powered by a solar collector. Other sound hikes lead into a cave system made of cooled lava or – by e-bike – to legendary cultural sites in the region.
During an evening excursion to the neighboring town of Ribeira Grande, 13 kilometers away, the concert with the Swiss psychedelic L’Eclair will take place in the covered fruit and vegetable market. Temporarily relocated from the central pavilion due to a heavy downpour that can come and go quickly here. So you sit on plastic chairs with the local neighborhood to the rich guitar groove and get drinks in the surrounding market pubs. Those looking to beat the night away head to the award-winning Arquipélagolud museum complex, which is transformed into an Azores mountain grove for the Tremor Festival.
Dinner together in the community center
The program also includes, after separate registration, a rustic, sumptuous dinner in the large parish hall of the Holy Spirit parish in the fishing village of Rabo de Peixe, where the local “Community Kitchen” prepares a menu of typical regional dishes. Stew and fish for fun karaoke with the village DJ, who celebrates classic Portuguese dances. If you want, you can also book with families and test the local cooking skills there, but you should have a good command of Portuguese.
The concerts become a scavenger hunt through the region when the venerable music school opens its concert hall made of dark wood to the electro tracks of the American Berliner Lyra Pramuk, the formerly posh merchant club Ateneu Commercial enables a subsonic performance with underwater videos or in the empty Azorean restaurant-saloon Solar de Graza dark doom sounds thunder. Correct waiters in black vests stand at the bar. A beer from the regional brand Especial costs one euro.
The largest venue is the imposing domed Colliseu Micalense built in 1917 with its three high tiers of boxes. The Brazilian Neo-Bossa-Nova star Rodrigo Amarante plays a much-acclaimed set here on the final evening, before walking the short walk over to an industrial site, where the Atlantic finale begins with the night concerts in a large repair hall of the local transport company…
Information about TREMOR 2023 is available HERE
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