Portugal No Coração: Namorados Da Cidade

Digital Release Image

It's the Portugal No Coração weeks at Eurocovers. With the impending Lisbon contest we'll take a look at some Portuguese classics, coverversions and all that. Browsing through my lists, records (and cassette tapes!) I'm sure there's enough to fill some Eurocovers pages, Portugal took their time....
Here's one that is as fresh as it can get though, it was released last February.

Namorados Da Cidade are a Lisbon rock band forged in 2015. I guess they named themselves after a well known Carlos Do Carmo song which translates as 'Boyfriends of the city' and is a lovesong to Lisbon life. (but I could be wrong of course).

The band have some tunes of their own but also play coverversions including some from your beloved Eurovision Song Contest (or rather the Festival da Canção).
If you check out their youtube you'll see live performances of songs like  Um grande Grande Amor (José Cid 1980), O Vento Mudou (Eduardo Nascimento 1967) and A Festa Da Vida (Carlos Mendes 1972).

But now the band have released their first album Namorados Da Cidade and three Eurocovers made it to the tracklist.
Silencio A Tanta Gente is the 1984 entry by Maria Guinot (11th place). It gets a gentle rock makeover and is actually quite fantastic.
There's also A Festa Da Vida but the main attraction is Desfolhada Portuguesa, the 1969 entry by Simone De Oliveira which ended at an inexcusable 15th place. Bad bad juries.
The legendary singer herself joins the band for this great version of her signature song which of course is a treat for Eurovision fans.
You can find the NdC album at your digital stores and streamers, a CD version is available in the Portuguese shops. I've seen it online at FNAC.
They have been touring the FNAC shops and you can still catch them there on March 30 (In Albufeira and Faro, check their facebook, links below)

The Namorados look like this: Picture taken from Namorados Facebook

Links and sources:
Namorados Da Cidade: Website, Facebook, Youtube channel
Other Portugal No Coração posts:
Dias Do Vinil - Some vinyl re-issues of Portuguese Eurovision classics.
Simone De Oliveira, Rainha do festivais has Simone's Eurovision/Eurocovers discography.

In the comments of the Dias Do Vinil post ERK gave us a link to a great list of coverversions of Portuguese entries he created at Discogs. Find it here. Thanks ERK!

An then there's this:

The Portuguese 2018 entry

The Lisbon Collection keeps track of the releases, versions and whathaveyou's of the 2018 contest, check it out.
These are a few of the latest updated pages:
Germany - Michael Schulte's Lied Für Lissabon. Dreamer album info
France - Destination Eurovision for Madame Monsieur, Mercy already a top 10 hit. Vu D'Ici album info
Estonia - Eurolaul goes Classic: La Forza to Lisbon, Remixes out now!
Israel - Netta Barzilai wins HaKokhav HaBa and comes a'cluckin'.  single version, remixes released.
Let's Get Physical - Quick list of physical releases
Portugal the country - Cláudia Pascoal wins Festival da Canção. FdC CD out now
Spain - Operación Triunfo revived, Alfred & Amaia to Eurovision, Eurovision Gala CD on February 23. New version of the Cancion and even more OT CDs, cdsingle on March 23
Poland - Gromee and Lukas win Krajowych Eliminacji Eurowizji 2018, CD Chapter One on March 16. promo info