NOS Alive 2019

[festivalguy97]

11 hours ago, Chinaski_ said:

Sigh...tired of Hip Hop and R&B taking over every festival now. 

Well that´s the future I guess, there are less and less rock oriented big bands like Pearl Jam and Foo Fighters that can sell out festivals, so they will turn themselves for other trends, other festivals here in Portugal did that, Super Bock used to bring bands like The Strokes, Metallica and a lot of metal stuff and this year they have Migos and Lana Del Rey, Primavera Sound Barcelona/Porto did the same, I think that Nos Alive will follow them, they´ll start with one hip hop, R&B or Pop headliner and then they will become a Coachella 2.0, but of course that will take time. 

Next year I expect Nos Alive to have a far better and bigger lineup, they will have the competition from Rock In Rio that is held every 2 years and the Nos Alive´s lineup at even years is better, 2016 and 2018 were superb. 

[BlackZeppelin]

Thom Yorke should have swapped times and stages with Bon Iver.

Was a very difficult decision to have to leave SPs after half an hour for Thom, knowing  they would play another stellar hour of hits.

Thom was awesome though,  as were the Chems.

Strange crowd.

 

[piotrbog]

A few observations (I was at Nos for the first time, earlier was many times at Primavera Sound and at Sziget):

- second day was finally not that bad (I was following your complaints here Grace Jones made the best show at the festival; having said that Gossip was definetely too small for the main stage;

- place is too small!! Saturday was too crowdy - summer, Saturday, relatively cheap ticketa and Smashing Pumpkins did the job but it was difficult; I did not like it;

- clubbing stage is too close to other both stages - sometimes you could hear the sound from another stage which was annoying.

All in all, nice festival - I enjoy it, especially concerts in the tent. I think no one has mentioned it yet but Sharon van Etten was also very good!

[Chinaski_]

2 hours ago, festivalguy97 said:

Well that´s the future I guess, there are less and less rock oriented big bands like Pearl Jam and Foo Fighters that can sell out festivals, so they will turn themselves for other trends, other festivals here in Portugal did that, Super Bock used to bring bands like The Strokes, Metallica and a lot of metal stuff and this year they have Migos and Lana Del Rey, Primavera Sound Barcelona/Porto did the same, I think that Nos Alive will follow them, they´ll start with one hip hop, R&B or Pop headliner and then they will become a Coachella 2.0, but of course that will take time. 

Next year I expect Nos Alive to have a far better and bigger lineup, they will have the competition from Rock In Rio that is held every 2 years and the Nos Alive´s lineup at even years is better, 2016 and 2018 were superb. 

Yeah I get you, I just wish they could save a few festivals for the rock fans rather than having them all taken over by Hip Hop and R'n'B. 

[Chinaski_]

Got back to London about an hour ago. Feels like only 5 minutes ago we were going in to watch Weezer and now I'm sat on my sofa at home. The time sure went by fast. Hope everyone had a great time! Smashing Pumpkins were the best act for me, my mate said Thom Yorke was, obviously I didn't see him though. 

[Tigane]

On 7/14/2019 at 8:50 PM, festivalguy97 said:

Well that´s the future I guess, there are less and less rock oriented big bands like Pearl Jam and Foo Fighters that can sell out festivals, so they will turn themselves for other trends, other festivals here in Portugal did that, Super Bock used to bring bands like The Strokes, Metallica and a lot of metal stuff and this year they have Migos and Lana Del Rey, Primavera Sound Barcelona/Porto did the same, I think that Nos Alive will follow them, they´ll start with one hip hop, R&B or Pop headliner and then they will become a Coachella 2.0, but of course that will take time. 

Next year I expect Nos Alive to have a far better and bigger lineup, they will have the competition from Rock In Rio that is held every 2 years and the Nos Alive´s lineup at even years is better, 2016 and 2018 were superb. 

They are changing the headliners to  the supposed new trend and  the funny thing  once sold out  festivals  are now struggling to sell out a single day. Nos Primavera Sound last year sold out only the day with Nick Cave (the rock day) and this year none of the days sold out. Yet the day Solange was headliner was cringely empty, and don't say it was because of the weather, because last year the Nick Cave day the weather was like 100000X worse and it sold out....  SBSR was the first to change , and they are struggling for years....  

[Chinaski_]

4 hours ago, Tigane said:

They are changing the headliners to  the supposed new trend and  the funny thing  once sold out  festivals  are now struggling to sell out a single day. Nos Primavera Sound last year sold out only the day with Nick Cave (the rock day) and this year none of the days sold out. Yet the day Solange was headliner was cringely empty, and don't say it was because of the weather, because last year the Nick Cave day the weather was like 100000X worse and it sold out....  SBSR was the first to change , and they are struggling for years....  

You often hear the argument that they are just booking what is popular etc, but pop and rap have always been popular, without being all over festival line ups. I don't mind a few acts long as they fit the vibe, De La Soul, Jurassic 5 etc, but I don't want another festival catering to rap and pop fans and losing what made it great. There's so few festivals left now still catering to rock fans and NOS Alive is a bit of a Godsend in that regard. 

[NOS newbie]

Had a great week in Costa da Caparica and really enjoyed 3 (long) nights at Nos Alive.we were apprehensive due to the lineup but we came away thinking we'd love to go again next year,regardless of the lineup. Mainly because the performances of acts we weren't bothered about seeing were actually good - VW, Tom Walker, Dj Kamala to name a few and especially the idles. We could see the  stage and the big screen. The band and crowd had us in tears, hilarious. I thought the Cure were amazing, i didn't even want to leave to get a beer. so glad i gave Bon Iver a wide birth. i could hear him at times and he had me yawning a lot. Hardly late evening festival music imo. 

Is the 3 days of Nos always organised so well? no queue at all on all 3 entries, toilets and bars were queue free,  i use these a lot. so that was a massive plus.  All staff ( and all the Portuguese i came across during my week)  were fantastic and so helpful,polite and welcoming to approach. The atmosphere was as described  - friendly and chilled. Always felt at ease in our surrounding and never a problem leaving my Mrs to go off for a beer etc. Not so easy finding her on return though. Either better navigation skills or taller partner needed haha.

roll on 2020 

 

[jplewes]

I really enjoyed the festival but the final day took it from a 4/5 to a 3/5 for me. Didn't enjoy the crowd(s) at all.

I love Bon Iver's records and I actually thought the performance and setlist was strong but the crowd was god awful. In front of us were a set of 'influencers' taking pics of each other or of themselves, only stopping to get a quick vid of skinny love before scampering off. Awful. I felt like a lot of the crowd was like that, not really there for the music but with a set of alternative/indie headliners. This also included people sat down AT THE FRONT during sharon van etten obviously waiting for xavier rudd or Jorja, who couldn't even be arsed to stand up to watch her.

Highlights for me were Sharon V.E, Rolling Blackouts, Vampire Weekend, Primal Scream and to an extent the Cure but I didn't get that near (was enjoying Loyle Carner before then).

Edited July 19, 2019 by jplewes

[WFD]

Not worth starting a new thread for, but as mentioned we also did Super Bock Super Rock on the same trip - well, most of it anyway.

Nice setting and during the day there were free shuttle buses between the festival site and the beach, which we used for two of the days.  We got there on the Wednesday and there was little on - one stage in the arena open for a "warm up party", but the rest of the arena fenced off and no food stalls open - the only food options were on the campsite and even then they weren't ready until after 7pm.  Lots of bars as you would expect given sponsor, including one at the main entrance and one on the campsite - and a "supermarket" selling cold Super Bock and Sommersby and little else.

Thursday was headlined by Lana Del Ray (with Jungle and then the 1975 before) and front of stage was rammed.  The whole site footprint was more than enough for the numbers attending but there seemed relatively little room between the sound desk and main stage, made worse by a VIP / golden section on one side.  I went down initially for Cat Power (4th on the bill) and by then there were already plenty of LDR fans camped out near the barrier (sitting and taking no notice of what was on stage).  By the time LDR came on it was quite uncomfortable and we moved after about 40 minutes to watch the rest from the back.

Then the fun really started - we camped and could hear car horns and alarms going off long into the night.  Next day their social media was full of complaints about the queues to get out of the car park and long waits (3-4 hours) for buses back into Lisbon.  In hindsight it was an obvious error on their part, in moving to a new site and then putting the most popular act on the first night.  Also you could tell from both entering the arena and on leaving after LDR that day ticket attendees massively outnumbered the campers that day.  There seemed to be some changes in the traffic management etc on the second and third nights and fewer complaints, but that may have had more to do with the drop in numbers after Thursday.

Friday was much quieter - we missed the first ten minutes or so of C&TQ (but could hear) waiting for our order at the merch, and still walked straight up to the front for the rest of the set. Between Ch&TQ and Phoenix we went to the other end to catch about half of Charlotte Gainsbourg's set and then headed back to wait for Phoenix and again got a really good spot, although it did get busier just before and during the set.

With little of interest on the final night (only really Janelle Monae for me, with one or two others I would have checked out) we made the decision on Saturday morning to head back into Lisbon for a 'normal' night before we flew back yesterday.  As it turned out a TV channel was broadcasting the festival live so we watched Janelle on the TV and again it looked very quiet before she came on, though seemed to get busier later in the set (not sure if there was a clash).  You could tell from the scanning shots that the arena was very quiet overall though.

Either way, Friday and Saturday had nowhere near the numbers of Thursday.  They have however already announced next year's dates so it must still be adding up somehow (guessing the sponsorship and TV money props it up).  It did feel very much like an lifestyle "experience" to look good on Instagram though I suppose you could say that about lots of festivals (especially when you're a middle aged grump like me).

Would maybe consider it again in the unlikely event of a killer line up, otherwise it's a case of been there, done that, glad we went but not a 'must do again'.

[birchtree29]

@WFDIt was dead for 5 months but here is the thread for it 

 

[WFD]

Ha! Cheers, I'd never spotted that before.

[ghoulieanne]

Hiya, does anyone know roughly when the tickets for next years festival will be released?

[festivalguy97]

So tomorrow there will be an annoucement at 14:00 o´clock (portuguese time), SOAD are expected as the first headliner. 

[young_contra]

Ya'll should migrate to the 2020 topic  

[graceunderpressure]

14 hours ago, festivalguy97 said:

So tomorrow there will be an annoucement at 14:00 o´clock (portuguese time), SOAD are expected as the first headliner. 

Hopefully it is true  . Give me them over vampire weekend any day !

[graceunderpressure]

As far from System of a down as possible !

[swelsbyuk]

9 minutes ago, graceunderpressure said:

As far from System of a down as possible !

She's playing in 2020, not 2019 bud.

[graceunderpressure]

27 minutes ago, swelsbyuk said:

She's playing in 2020, not 2019 bud.

Apologies  . Still a disaster all the same !