Coliseu

In June 2008, following the success of her third studio album, Para Além da Saudade, Ana Moura gave two concerts, filling the coliseums of Porto and Lisbon. This album is a live recording from the second of these, which, despite having been released in Portugal in November 2008, is only now available in the UK. (A DVD of the concert is also available, but only as a special import.) Anyway, it was clearly quite a concert. The sultry warmth and atmosphere of that Lisbon night are well conveyed on disc, and while the intimate acoustics of Lisbon's Fado House are sacrificed to the amplified sound and recording conditions of the Coliseu, there is ample compensation in the ambience, audience rapport and the momentum of the set. The opening Amalia Rodrigues standard, ‘Lavava No Rio Lavava’, has the audience singing along at the end. The choice of tracks is sure-handed, providing variety, pace and plenty of crowd-pleasers. Eight of the 15 tracks come from Para Além da Saudade. The rest, bar one (‘Os Meus Olhos’), are from the first two studio albums. Jorge Fernando (who in times gone by played guitar for Amalia) produced the album – in addition to being the writer and composer of some of the songs. Able accompaniment is provided by Manuel Neto on Portuguese guitar, José Elmiro Nunes on Portuguese and classical guitar and Filipe Larsen on bass guitar.

Despite touring widely on the continent, and as far afield as Japan, China and the US, Ana Moura has only performed once in the UK – at the Union Chapel in Islington last year. With luck, Moura will wash up on these shores more often in future.