Vodafone Paredes de Coura 2019: the review
Sometimes it’s hard to be objective and unbiased when writing about a festival that is such a big part of your life. Except for two (very) unremarkable lineups that made me stay home, since I was old enough to go to college all my summers involved a trip to Paredes de Coura (and a painful trip back, too). When you’re a kid, they say you’ll eventually get older and boring, in a process they call “becoming an adult”. This usually comes with amazing perks such as ceasing to listen to any new music whatsoever, stopping seeing your (also ageing) friends, having great conversations about changing diapers with your remaining friends (yes, the other couple with kids you always go vacationing with to some shitty beach full of other couples with kids and the odd mother-in-law). Obviously, a multi-day, non-kid friendly, rural music festival such as Festival Paredes de Coura seems like one of those things that are amongst the first to drop from your newfound “adult life”. Except you don’t have to be that person; and is there anything better to remind you of that than going there and finding all your friends in the same place, same month, year after year, all over again? (Well, other than imagining the smell of those diapers.)
Vodafone Paredes de Coura 2019: our top picks
Vodafone Paredes de Coura 2018. Photo by Hugo Lima.
Another summer, another missed opportunity to have a vacation somewhere because there’s nowhere else we’d rather be other than at our little paradise of Paredes de Coura, in northwestern Portugal. The festival runs from the 14th to the 17th of August, but, like always, the fun begins way earlier than that, with four fun-packed, free entrance days with concerts and DJ sets right in the center of the small Minho village.
While you are here, grab our printable festival schedule: PDF or XLS format. You might have to download the Gotham font to make the editable Excel file work properly. And scroll down to the end of this post for our special playlist, featuring a selection of 30 songs from artists playing in this year’s edition of the festival.
Our highlight from the O Festival Sobe à Vila segment, running from the 10th to the 13th, has to be the mythical Parkinsons (Tuesday, 13, 23:30). The Portuguese punk rockers from Coimbra who made a name for themselves in London will set the village on fire (figuratively; this country has had enough forest fires, no thanks).