The idea began shortly after Jorge's first concert with the noise quartet Ekcetera. Floating on the euphoria and adrenaline of their first experience on stage, the band imagined putting on a festival with only “chavalos bands”. But the idea, spoken in jest, took root, and soon Jorge was knocking on a lot of doors. He only got a positive response when he arrived at Socorro. Due to the record store's opening hours, the festival would have to take place in the afternoon, thus adding the final ingredients: Xavalo Fest would be a matinee in a basement with green underground bands.

As for the first lineup, it could well have been just a group of friends, but Jorge recalls that he invited O Triunfo dos Acéfalos, “a band I didn't know personally at the time”. “In the meantime, we became friends, but it also happened between Gonkallo and Cat Soup, who have done some collaborations since they played at the same edition of Xavalo Fest.” Since then, Xavalo Fest has seen many firsts: the first concerts by Yaatana, Bastardos Mutantes and Gonkallo, and the city debuts of Orum and Pato Bernardo.

The festival's formula seems immediately legible: new bands. But there's a whole ethic associated with this idea of “new”, which translates into youth (“no one can be 30”), but also rebellion, since “bands can't be associated with promoters and publishers”. In addition to this do-it-yourself ethic, there is also - albeit less symbolically - an aesthetic associated with Xavalo Fest, and Jorge confesses to “a bias”.

In terms of results, the first edition was attended by more than 200 people. As well as the expected friends of the bands, there was a large turnout from Porto's underground scene, which Jorge proudly says has remained loyal to the event. In fact, when Agenda Porto recently interviewed the programmer of Maus Hábitos, Luís Salgado, he admitted to being a regular at Xavalo Fest: "It's really funny because they're all high school bands. I go and listen, and if I like something, I call Maus". Something that Jorge contrasts, with some joy, with the state of the big festivals in Portugal: "There's a lot of conservatism in the programming. They always defend the ideals of promoting new bands, but the headliners are always foreign bands. Then you see big national festivals declaring bankruptcy, it's the result of this liberalism that says one thing and does another," he says. And he gives an example: "In Germany, it's very common for the headliners to be German bands. The reason is simple: small local bands only have the chance to headline here, and nowhere else in the world."