Portugal. The Man and the spirit of ’69
Portugal. The Man named its eighth full-length album “Woodstock” for a reason.
It’s the same reason anybody ever conjures up the mythos of that epic four-day music festival of lore, which crystallized 1969 as a pivotal moment in rock ’n’ roll history. Woodstock is a political statement in a single word, the event itself an iconic countercultural musical celebration of young America’s sociopolitical consciousness, and it still resonates.
In the latest release, Portugal. The Man aimed to recapture that feeling. Curious listeners can catch Portugal. The Man, along with Local Natives and up-and-
comer Benjamin Booker, at Berkeley’s Greek Theatre on Friday, July 28.
The legend of Woodstock was revelatory for the band. Even though members of Portugal. The Man encountered memories and mementos of the festival at different points in their respective childhoods, it still inspires the same awe and wonder in 2017.
Guitarist Eric Howk recalls discovering the Woodstock legacy.
“I was young and I was hungry for anything, any culture I could get,” he says.
His family had recorded the documentary film “Woodstock” when it broadcast on public television. It was one of the first times he’d seen the power of music in action, and he revisited that videotape recording often. For young Howk, it changed everything.
“I knew about Woodstock as a kid, but then actually seeing that footage ...,” he says. “That Richie Havens performance — that was really one of the first really soulful, incredibly moving performances I had ever seen . ... I had never seen that much sweat and that much heart coming out of one guy.”
“Woodstock,” the album, took about four years to make — unusual for Portugal. The Man, whose usual pattern was to release new music every year or two. The band had been fiddling around with various ideas following 2013’s “Evil Friends,” but Howk and his bandmates ultimately found themselves stuck in a creative stasis.
In Howk’s retelling, Woodstock got the band moving again — specifically, it was the discovery of an original ticket stub from the event, courtesy of frontman and lead singer John Gourley’s father, that inspired the record.
“In terms of our connection (to Woodstock), I think it was the first time we realized that music could really mean something and come from the heart,” says Howk. “There’s a message of caring about where we are and where we live.”
It began to fall into place. The ticket stub, the familial memories — this all felt so relevant, and every player in the band (Howk, Gourley, bassist Zachary Carothers, keyboardist Kyle O’Quin and drummer Jason Sechrist) innately understood that Woodstock was at the heart of the music they were now trying to make.
Portugal. The Man finds that the spirit of the festival is very much still alive across the world. “Woodstock” (the album) filters today’s sociopolitical environment through a haze of psychedelic rock ’n’ roll: commenting on class disparity and lavish living in “Rich Friends” and “Keep On”; reacting to international crises in “Noise Pollution”; searching for meaningful personal connections in a divided America in “Live in the Moment” and “So Young.” Listeners are left with the thought that not much has changed in five decades.
Even the album’s lead single, “Feel It Still,” is an exercise in open speculation, indebted to modern history while characterizing today’s casual activism as an offshoot of major civil rights and antiwar movements in the 1960s to ’80s — and then, as choruses begin to pile up, the song wonders if the fight is yet again under way. In response to current hot-button issues like travel bans or border walls, a disembodied voice intones across the bridge, “Is it coming back?”
“To scoff and pull back at the idea and say that artists shouldn’t use their voice to raise issues like this — I would say that’s ludicrous,” says Howk. “We don’t feel an obligation to be political, but I also find no problem in us using our perspective to shed a light on what we see.”
“I know that (“Woodstock”) has been alienating for some people, but we don’t really care about that,” he adds. “We made it for ourselves.”
“I was young and I was hungry for anything, any culture I could get.” Eric Howk, Portugal. The Man guitarist, on discovering the Woodstock legacy