Fado N’ Grass at the 2024 Trafaria Bluegrass church stage – photo © Raul Costa
This report on coastal Portugal’s Trafaria Bluegrass is a contribution from Andre Dal.
Trafaria Bluegrass 2024 was a huge success. The third edition of the only Portuguese bluegrass festival was held between 13 and 15 of September, in the small fishing village of Trafaria, Portugal, on the south bank of the Tagus river, with Lisbon in sight on the other side. For three days, Trafaria became a musical village, filled with concerts, workshops, jams, and an innumerous number of side activities. The whole village was decorated to receive musicians and people from all over the world, including countries such as Japan, Australia, United States, Canada, Belgium, Italy, Spain, France, and Portugal, among others.
Six bands shared the main stage, and also played at different smaller side stages. Fado N’ Grass, the Portuguese bluegrass band that mixed the traditional Portuguese music, fado, with bluegrass, music opened the main stage on Friday night with a repertoire of fado songs played with a bluegrass feeling, and also did a gospel set with special guest appearance of Katsuhiro Narita from Japan at the Church stage on Saturday evening.
Rain of Animals is a duo from Scotland/Australia that opened the main stage on Saturday night, and also played at the Poço Novo stage on Sunday afternoon. Boom Ditty is a five, and sometimes six piece band from France. They played on the main stage on Friday night, and also on the Bandstand stage on Saturday afternoon.
Lluís Gómez Bluegrass Quartet is a fantastic band from Spain, France, and Czechia which perfectly blend bluegrass music with their own different cultures. The final result is a superb mix of world music. The band closed the main stage on Friday night, and also played at the SRMT stage on Saturday afternoon.
Blue Weed is a band from Italy that played on Saturday night on the main stage, and closed the festival on Sunday evening at the Casino stage. The audience loved their extremely skilled approach to the traditional bluegrass music of Bill Monroe.
The US band Level Best was the highlight of this year’s edition. An amazing concert to open the festival at the Presídio stage on Friday evening and an awesome performance of traditional bluegrass music to close the main stage on Saturday night.
Lots of side activities happened during the weekend, as you can see at the festival’s website.
The audience was vibrating with all the musicians, especially with the jams that happened on and off stage, as you can see on this video.
The support from the Almada City Hall and the Caparica/Trafaria parish council was crucial to the festival’s success, along with all the volunteers’ work and the Recreios Desportivos da Trafaria organization. Though, the festival needs continuous support as the event is free of charge!
