Expensive Soul will celebrate 25 years of their career with a concert at the Coliseu do Porto in October next year, in which they will have “special guests”, it was announced today.
In this show, scheduled for October 11, the band from New Max and Demo will “review their five albums”, according to the group’s management, in a statement released today.
Expensive Soul came together in 1999, in Leça da Palmeira, in the municipality of Matosinhos, but the band’s first album, “B.I.”, wasn’t released until 2004. This was followed by “Alma Cara” (2006), “Utopia” (2010), “Sonhador” (2014) and “A Arte das Musas” (2019).
In 2019, on the occasion of the release of “A Arte das Musas” and the celebrations of Expensive’s 20th anniversary, New Max (Tiago Novo) highlighted, in an interview with Lusa, several positive moments in the group’s career, with the “strongest point” being “Eu não sei”, a song from the first album, which, by being part of the soundtrack for TVI’s “Morangos com Açúcar” television series, would make the band’s music “reach the general public”.
A few years later, in 2010, another career highlight came with “O amor é mágico” (Love is magic), a song that is part of “Utopia”. “It was a song that was recognized nationwide and [with which] we won some awards,” recalled New Max.
The musician and producer also highlighted the Symphonic Experience show, with an orchestra led by conductor Rui Massena, which came about as part of the Guimarães European Capital of Culture in 2012.
“It was also a very high point in our career, because it was something we weren’t expecting to do so soon, so young. It was with around 200 musicians on stage, and we thought we’d only do something like this when we were 50 years into our career, but it came up at that time and it was something unique for us and something that marked us out,” said New Max at the time.
Although most things have been “very positive, there have been, and continue to be, some setbacks”, because every album the band releases independently “is a battle”.
Publishing the albums independently eventually became an option. In 2001, after knocking on the door of a few record companies and being turned down, they decided to do “an author’s edition of a thousand records”.
“A year later, EMI wanted to re-release ‘BI’ and we made a new edition and the second album was already licensed to EMI. We’ve always been independent artists, but we licensed that record to EMI. On the third album we went back to being alone, independent, and we’re still like that today,” he recalled.
This way, New Max believes, Expensive Soul can “be more authentic”.
Although New Max and Demo are the ‘face’ of Expensive Soul, the team includes a number of other people, including musicians and technicians.
Tickets for the concert at the Coliseu do Porto are already on sale and cost between 15 and 40 euros.
