I Just Read About That…

[ATTENDED: December 4, 2025] Portugal. The Man

I saw Portugal. The Man last year in Asbury Park.  It was an overcrowded show and I found it pretty unpleasant to be there (not a fan of The Stone Pony).  Although the band was so much fun and played great songs, I came away from the show not knowing if I’d want to see them again.  But a year passed and I realized the problem was the crowd not the band.  So when they announced this show at Union Transfer, I decided to get a ticket.  And an ADA seat.

The seat was a good choice because I had lots of room, but I feel like I missed out on some interesting on stage interactions because I was pretty far back.

In the past, the band has had a Native speaker introduce the band.  They would talk about the land we were on and, in Asbury, they did a traditional song.  I expected the same tonight, but instead, they played a short film that was very powerful.  It was about The Living Fire–people, detatched from nature and the evil spirits are coming in.  Avoid the dark forces of anti-reality.

Then the band came out–something between seven and ten people (I wasn’t that close and some people seemed to come and go).

Denali a really heavy song with a classic heavy metal sound in the guitars, although the vocals are pure PTM.  Pittman is pure hardcore, with screamed vocals. The singer was David Marion (from the band Fear Before) whose intense screams set this song apart.  I’m not even sure if he did anything else–he was very tall and seemed to come out of nowhere.  The thing about the visuals was that they projected images on a screen behind them which mean they were in shadow or silhouette most of the night.

After the third song, the more mellow Angoon, I thought that maybe the band were playing the new album Shish front to back.  I hadn’t listened to the album that much, but I enjoyed what I’d heard.  And live, there was so much variety that it kept everything really interesting.

I was also intrigued because the on stage band seemed quite different from last time.  Like, where was guitarist Eric Howk?  Or singer Redray Frazier?  Well it turns out that for this show they had a totally different backing band. Main The Man John Gourley has always been there and singer Zoe Manville (Gourley’s wife) has been with the band since 2008.  For this tour they had Nick Reinhart on guitar.  He had played with them a decade ago and was back for this tour.  Their drummer Kane Ritchotte (I could only see his pigtails in the silhouette) was new as were Dani Bell on bass and of course Marion is new for this album.

That left Liv Slingerland who played guitar with them last year as well.  She was amazing to watch doing incredible solos throughout the night.  The solo on Knik was particularly cool.

Shish started with some weird manipulated vocals before turning into one of the more conventional (meaning the chorus sounds very Portugal. The Man) songs on the album.  I wish I had known the record a little better before the show because there’s so much interesting stuff to digest in it.  But it was fun to experience it live.

I haven’t really mentioned the videos on screen, but they were largely images of Denali and similarly appropriate visuals.  Mush, a short fast song, was notable for having sled dogs running as the main visual.  The song is bouncy frenetic fun that was followed by the far more intense Tyonek.  The song starts quietly but really takes off with sirens wailing and more heavy guitars.  And the visuals were intense–I’m fairly certain there were clips of a Studio Ghibli movie (although more violent than I’m used to from Ghibli) and buildings collapsing.

The next song featured Kokhanockers videos of body builders (including a young Arnold Schwarzenegger).  It returned to that softer, catchier PTM sound.  And when it was over, John told us that they were playing the entire new album.  And that they would be coming back to it in a little while.  But that they were going to play some old songs for a little while.

It seems to be called Act II on setlists, and while they didn’t go all the way back to their earliest stuff, they played a few songs from several albums.

They started with 2011’s In the Mountain in the Cloud.  They played three songs: Got It All, Head in a Flame and Senseless.   After a newer song (released on an EP) they played the older songs that I know much better–the ones from Evil Friends.

The insanely catchy Modern Jesus (and here the videos got a bit weirder as well.  Abstract images of animated people hugging giants eggs and multiple images of eyeless faces floating around).  The fantastic Creep in a T-shirt and the insanely catchy one of single from 2022 What Me Worry.  Which featured prominent horns from Ryan Wiggans (and, it turned out, special guests).

They moved on to 4 songs from the Woodstock album (but surprisingly did not play Feel It Still).  Live in the Moment was an amazingly rousing anthem that everyone sang along to.  They played Tidal Wave and So Young and then ending the set with Noise Pollution.

They had promised that they’d finish up the new album and after these oldies, they played the final two new songs.

Tanana is the new single, super quiet and super catchy–it worked perfectly in this spot in the set.  And then the final song of the album, Father Gun set the show up for the encore.  Recently Weird Al sang Rage Against The Machine’s Killing in the Name.  As soon as they started playing it, I thought maybe Weird Al would be with us too (I seriously doubted it though).  So Weird Al didn’t join us but Snacktime did.

Snacktime was around for the whole show–I think I saw some of them pop out from time to time, but their lead singer is amazing at hyping people up for Killing in the Name.  Snacktime joined them for the RATM song in Asbury Park as well and on both occasions being in a room full of people singing that song was an amazing experience.

This show was so different from the previous one and each was great in its own way.  I can’t wait to see what they do next.

Tito Santana recorded the whole show