What were the chances of this happening, out here in the middle of the ocean?’ asks Colleen (stage name of French musician Cécile Schott), midway through a set of minimalist synth music in a cavernous mid-century theatre smack-bang in the middle of the Atlantic.
Colleen’s performing on the Azorean island of São Miguel at Tremor, one of the world’s most remote music festivals. Taking in our surroundings, it’s hard not to share Colleen’s wonder and disbelief.
The Azores, for those not in-the-know, are an archipelago very, very far from pretty much anything – roughly 1,400 kilometres west of Lisbon and 1,900km east of North America. On a map, the Azores are mere specks in a wash of blue; surrounded on all sides by a terrifying mass of Atlantic Ocean.
Tremor uses that isolation to its advantage. By virtue of its lack of contact with the hyper-commercialised, overblown fests of the continent, for over a decade Tremor has distilled and incubated what a music festival should be: platforming excellent music in a unique location, for the benefit of attendees and locals alike. But while there’s no doubt that it’s that sense of inaccessibility that gives Tremor plenty of its identity and charm, this festival is more than its unusual location. Tremor has a rep for being one of the world’s best musical celebrations. So, why is that, exactly? We went to the festival’s 2024 edition to find out.
Music venues reinvented
My Tremor 2024 starts as it would go on: with a cycle of mystery, anticipation, and eventually proper, thorough, ecstatic release. Having flown in from Lisbon and shacked up in a hotel in São Miguel’s biggest city Ponta Delgada, on the first afternoon I’m bundled onto a coach and told I’m being shipped off to one of the festival’s many secret gigs – those in its ‘Tremor na Estufa’ series.
Regulars at festivals in the UK, Europe and beyond have a right to be sceptical of the idea of ‘secret gigs’ – at the likes of Glastonbury and Reading, rumours of superstar surprises often spread like wildfire, only for the actual event to be underwhelming or a bit naff. But secret gigs at Tremor couldn’t be further from that. Instead, they’re exactly as tantalising and rewarding as they should be.
Mid-afternoon, all festival goers are informed by text the location of that day’s Tremor na Estufa gig. If, like me, you don’t drive, coaches haul punters around the island to gigs.
