Festival Season Kicks Off In Lisbon

The proverbial plethora of talent passing through Lisbon’s Portela airport during the last weekend in May marks the beginning of what looks to be another highly successful European festival season.

Although Portugal can hardly claim to have the continent’s richest festival heritage, the 2006 outdoor programme kicks off here with the recently imported Rock in Rio and Musica No Coracao’s Super Bock Super Rock Festival.

One day before the 100,000-capacity Rock In Rio gets under way May 26 at Bela Vista Park – the second time the Rio-based festival has been held there – Korn, Within Temptation, Soulfly and Portugal’s Moonwish are scheduled to head the first day’s Super Bock at the 50,000-capacity Parque das Nações.

Nuno Vierei from Super Bock organisers Musica No Coracao said neither event suffers due the presence of the other – although they’re less than five miles apart – because they pull such different sorts of crowds.

“Our festival is for young people who are focused on the music, and Rock In Rio, although it has a huge stage with major international talent, is something of a family day out, more of a carnival.

“Apart from that, we only overlap on Rock In Rio’s opening day, which is our second day,” he explained.

The main attractions on Rio’s first day are Shakira, Jamiroquai and Groove Armada, while the second day of Super Bock has Placebo, Deftones, Alice In Chains, and Primitive Reason.

Rio’s second day has Guns N’ Roses, The Darkness, Kill The Young, and Living Things.

The two events can’t be crowding each other too much as both come back for a second helping at the beginning of June, although not on the same weekend.

Part Two of Rock In Rio June 2-4 has a bill that includes Roger Waters, Santana, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Anastacia, Sting, Starsailor, and Corinne Bailey Rae.

On June 7 and 8, Super Bock Part Two has Franz Ferdinand, Keane, The Cult, dEUS, Editors, Patrice, 50 Cent, Pharrell Williams, Boss AC, and Kalibrados.

— John Gammon