On The sixth day of Porto’s academic week, a lot of people thought to themselves “what am I going to do tonight?” Not us, Queima can suck our collective cocks since Cave 45 had a much better offer on the table, better than anything on any day of any year of the academic weeks, not a hard thing to do.

As we returned to Cave 45 for the first time in a while, “Heavy Cross of Flowers” were opening with some tasty stoner rock. A trio playing one of their first shows (I’m not entirely sure if he said it was the first one or not) to a considerable crowd who waved their bodies casually to the rhythm.

The show was alright, we just don’t understand why the vocalist insisted on people to start moving. Why? Its stoner, moshing doesn’t quite work in a stoner show, only in certain specific acts that graze the ass cheeks of thrash metal and even though you had some of these elements thrown in there, the chill grooves outweighed them.

Again, it wasn’t a bad show, nice attitude, plenty of energy, enjoyable tunes, just not the right ingredients for extreme violence and that’s ok.

The main event that night was “Mars Red Sky”, the only band we saw on our first trip to Sonic Blast back in 2013 (it’s a good thing we weren’t in this business at the time) and boy did we miss these guys.

If you’ve only heard “Mars Red Sky” at home, you probably think they are a soft kind of stoner rock that is more chill than anything else. Well, the doom part of their music is amped to fuck on their live performances (specially the drums) and you feel the sound take hold of you and its vibrations make you orgasm.

The house was full as the show began with the album intro “Alien Grounds” and Apex III. Although the doom is mighty, the voice and delicious riffs put you into a harmonious trance as the band moves your body through the music.

“Hovering Satellites” followed, the order of the songs is fuzzy in our heads though. They played “Strong Reflection” (Oh yea, the single, props for the people who heard this song once before leaving the house because they were going to the show with someone they were trying to pork) and “Marble Sky” from the first album. “Mindreader”, “Shot in Providence” and “The Light Beyond” were also thrown in the mix.

The music blended perfectly with their amazing low budget videos being projected behind them. A truly harmonious psychedelic experience, they finished the set with “Be my guide” only because the crowd asked for more music.

Another well spent night on the unending list of amazing nights at Cave 45.

 

Text by J.P. Alves

Photos by Diogo A.