Tales From The Porn live from the Manifesto Bar at São Paulo, Brazil Concert Review

BRAZILIAN-AMERICAN BAND TALES FROM THE PORN FIRST LIVE SHOW!

Date: April 7, 2018
Venue: Manifesto Bar
Location: São Paulo, Brazil
Reviewer: Otavio Juliano – IG @showsbyotavio
Photos: Barbara Martins – IG @barbaramartinsphoto

Considering the Sleaze Roxx’s Top Ten Albums of 2017 and being a big Brazilian fan of the golden era of ’80s hard rock, I decided to contact Sleaze Roxx editor Olivier to suggest to him that I could write some words about the very first live concert of the Brazilian-American band Tales From The Porn. The album H.M.M.V. took the first position in the aforementioned Sleaze Roxx’s Top Ten Albums of 2017 and I felt that this concert should have a review here on the website. Last Saturday in Brazil was marked as an important celebration for Brazilian hard rock fans and especially for the musicians involved in this project/band named Tales From The Porn.

Being great lovers of ’80s hard rock, guitarist Andy Sun and bassist Bento Mello decided to create a band to pay homage to this heavy metal genre recruiting the following other Brazilian musicians — Ed (drums), Bruno (guitar) and Igor (keyboards). They joined forces with Stevie Rachelle, the singer known for his work with Tuff and Shameless. After a long period of recording with the benefit of the technology — Stevie lives in the USA and recorded all of his lead vocals in California while the Brazilian musicians recorded the rest in Sao Paulo, Brazil — they came up with H.M.M.V. (which stands for “Heavy Metal Minha Vida” in Portuguese, which translates into “Heavy Metal My Life” in English).

Tales From The Porn:

As we all know, when a band launches a new album, the next step is going on tour and spreading the news to everyone by playing the songs live. Due to the distance difficulties between Stevie and the other members, they could only schedule the band’s first concert for last Saturday, even though the H.M.M.V. album was released six months ago. It was a long wait but it was worth it! Celebrating the ’80s hard rock era, Tales From The Porn played their entire debut album in random order while adding some Tuff songs to the setlist like the power ballad “I Hate Kissing You Goodbye.”

Songs that absolutely remind you of the ’80s like “Back To The 80’s,” “Runaway Lovers” and “Hot Girls Fast Cars” were included in the set and the public sang along the songs with the band with a lot of enthusiasm. If you have heard the H.M.M.V. album and enjoyed the band’s version for “Danger Zone” — the classic song included in the soundtrack of the blockbuster Top Gun movie of 1986 — the cover performed by Tales From The Porn is even much better live, believe me.

The concert took only one hour but it was a full hour celebrating the hair metal style and it was a very cool and funny concert. At 52 years, Stevie was noticeably happy being part of this project and mentioned that he could be the father or maybe even grandfather to the keyboardist Igor as the band has a mix of young musicians with a remnant singer from the glory days of hard rock. Andy, Bento and the entire group clearly demonstrated their happiness of turning their idea of a band to celebrate the ’80s in an album and now in a live concert. It is tough to imagine how the band will deal with the distance between the US and Brazil to keep an agenda for future concerts or to record a new album but I really hope that they can do this. The ’80s era deserves more bands like this.

No one left Manifesto Bar without a smile on their face. I hope Tales From The Porn can play also in the US soon and obviously, also again in Brazil.

Pleasure Maker as special guest:

Before Tales From The Porn hit the stage, another Brazilian band, Pleasure Maker, took to the stage. Inspired by bands like Def Leppard, Ratt and Dokken, Pleasure Maker played for 30 minutes presenting songs from their last album Dancin´ With Danger, which was released via Brazilian label Animal Records in March 2018. If you like hard rock, I highly recommend that you check them out on Spotify or Deezer. Songs like the album title, “Chains Of Love” and “It Ain’t Bout Love” are really good.

Tales From The Porn members:
Stevie Rachelle – lead vocals
Andy Sun – lead guitar
Bento Mello – bass
Bruno Marx – rhythm guitar
Ed Avian – drums
Igor Godoi – keyboards, guitar, backing vocals

Tales From The Porn’s setlist:
01. Runaway Lovers
02. Tales From The Porn
03. In Dogs We Trust (Tuff)
04. Girls Wanna Party (In Augusta Street)
05. Scary Movie
06. Hot Girls Fast Cars
07. Let It Shake
08. Perfect Love
09. All New Generation (Tuff)
Encores:
10. I Hate Kissing You Goodbye (Tuff)
11. Danger Zone (Kenny Loggins cover)
12. Back To The 80’s