Garden VII

When we first heard about it, we were scared too.

So far away.
So menacing.

A body of water between it and you, with strange orange beasts ferrying all those people… the other-siders.

But our brave Gardners made the trip! And arrived at the newly-opened Arroz Estúdios in Cacilhas for the third installment of Garden Collective in Lisboa.

And what an installment it was. This was the first of the Lisbon-based events to have Garden-made food on offer, and boy was there a spread. The star of the show was without a doubt the beetroot burger, but it was made even better with a dip of dal and a dollop of hummus.

Art, of course, adorned the white-brick walls of the venue. Lucky for us, Arroz Estúdios is an up-and-coming space for artists, so we got the chance to exhibit some in-house artists as well as parachuting in our own.

Of course, there were on-stage acts as well.

Firstly, Wallace & the black sheep. Despite the name, this is just one man, Duarte Leal, but you’d be forgiven for thinking otherwise considering the impressively whole sound he produced with just his voice and guitar.

Next up, or should I say down, as he plays his set sitting on the floor, was Mr. Bubble. A show that leaves audiences asking: Who is Mr.Bubble? Where did he come from? Why are his instruments lashed together with masking tape and bubble gum? Ok, so maybe that last point is just me, but he does have a wild looking setup. His laid-back electronic tunes, mixed with the somewhat-ethereal nature of his voice made for an intimate set that gathered the crowd in close.

Garden events try to shift shows away from just music, and our next act did just that with a silence-inducing set of poems. Palavra Lisboa is, as the name suggests, a Lisbon-based group whose members are somewhat fluid. We were lucky enough to have a performance by three top-class poets in a show that took us from the sad to the serene in a matter of moments.

Lus na Gréine brought a little light to our night as the cold winter drew in. A duo who have played together for the better part of a decade, their set was just the right combination of merriment and nostalgia, with a dash of saudades thrown in for good measure.

The night was closed by the one, the only, the legendary County Vinyl. But, to add a cherry on an already sickly-sweet cake, one of the Arroz organisers jumped on the decks and knocked out a set to be remembered.

Well, half-remembered, it was a very late night after all.

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