We got a one-way ticket out of the U.S., packed everything we owned into nine bags (two of which were dog carriers), carefully stored our concert posters at my in-laws’ house, and headed to Portugal: our new home. As all four of us made our way through the tiled streets lined with even more intricately tiled buildings, we knew this was the right choice. Live music spilled out of a café near our new flat, and art filled our eyes in every direction they wandered.
My husband, Mike, and I had never been to Portugal before. We barely spoke the language, didn’t know the neighborhoods, and never traveled by train, but we knew how to find live music. Priorities were clear.
The fatigue that comes with jet lag and the disorientation of a new country melted away as we embarked on an all-too-familiar ritual almost immediately after arriving: prepping for a show. We were too tired to properly activate our new cell phones, but apparently not too tired to chase a band across the country.
Instead of driving our 1986 van (our home on wheels through hundreds of U.S. concerts), we headed to the train station. Rather than filling up on gas, we fueled on espresso at the corner café. I told myself this was what adventure felt like; excitement tangled with the fear of the unknown.
At our first train station—just two days after our arrival, en route to Porto to see Yawning Man on its European tour—a stranger tapped my shoulder and asked, “Hey, you’re Phish fans too?” We were wearing a Taylor Swift x Phish mashup shirt while our dogs sported little red donuts on their collars, essentially begging to connect with fellow jam band fans.
That simple question was the moment we knew Portugal was it for us. We weren’t leaving behind our music community; we were building a new one.
1. Jet Lag To Jam Nights
In those first days of navigating train routes and learning a new way of life, we were guided by the familiar gravitational pull of chasing the next show.
From getting engaged at a music festival to attending more than a thousand shows together over the last 13 years, music has always been that invisible string. Our core memories are tied to Dead & Company tours, Phish runs, Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour, and local bands discovered throughout our travels.
Portugal is connected to that same invisible string where music is an integral part of daily life and culture. Fado in alleyways of Lisbon, buskers strumming a familiar tune in the praças, and those bass notes at our first show melted away anxieties about our move abroad.
The music and the murmur of an audience about to fall into rhythm together made us feel right at home. Same feeling. Different continent.
2. Finding Our Rhythm & Adapting To Portugal’s Music Scene
Portugal quickly revealed itself as a playground for live music, a reason to explore more new-to-us sounds than ever before. We decided to commit 100% to that exploration of music; a big part of that was simply saying “yes” (or “sim”) to any and all musical opportunities that came our way.
Our first year abroad, we attended more than 50 shows… probably closer to 100, but I honestly lost track. From the underground clubs of Lisbon and Porto to major music festivals abroad and seaside bars in the Algarve, the variety was dizzying, but we still found ways to connect with our die-hard fandoms of Deadheads, Swifties, and Phish fans.
Within three weeks of moving, I launched a Facebook group, Swifties in Portugal, to connect with fans excited for The Eras Tour movie release and upcoming Lisbon shows. By the end of the month, 4,000 people had joined. That group gave me my first friend here and proved that no matter where you go, the shared love of music transcends language. In a sold-out theater, I smiled as Swifties of all ages sang with different accents and strangers held hands while dancing at the front of the screen.
Witnessing firsthand just how much Portuguese people live for live music and community gave us the confidence to explore beyond the familiar, both in genre and venue. One serendipitous example occurred as Mike was coming home after seeing Goose in Manchester, U.K. The two-hour flight turned into an eight-hour travel day after numerous delays. What would normally be a day of exhaustion turned into a pivotal moment in our music exploration in Portugal.
On the train ride home, while wearing a Dead & Co shirt, Mike felt a tap on his shoulder (yet again) followed by the question, “Hey mate, you like music and parties?” Unsure of the reason behind the question but fully committed to our quest to say “yes” to all things music, Mike responded, “Yeah, yeah I do.”
That’s when we learned of a rave in the mountains about 30 minutes from our adopted hometown of Lagos, known as “Friday happiness” because of the epic pizza party music events hosted weekly in the forests of Tojeiro. In the spirit of saying “sim,” this became the next coordinate on our map of music.
Friday Happiness In The Mountains
Narrow dirt roads with no lights and hand-painted wooden signs eventually opened up to a scene that, once again, made us feel at home. Mural-covered campervans filled the tiny lot at the base of a hill with people from around the world greeting each other and discussing their last show. We followed the sounds of distant bass up a muddy hiking path, letting the music guide us into the dark.
Just when we questioned what we had gotten ourselves into, we turned a corner to face welcome signs leading to a fairy-lit path through the trees. This commune/music venue on the other side of the world felt like a Shakedown Street at a Phish or Dead show.
Locs, fluorescent paint, and grunge rock tees under concert lights coalesced for a rave, drum circle, and lot scene all rolled into one. Although there wasn’t as much tie-dye as we were used to, the scent of spliffs and wood-fired pizza had all the makings of the jam band scene, right here in Portugal. Familiar yet completely new.
[Photo: Roam Away From Home — Friday happiness hideaway]
Three stages, each with a different BPM, filled the mountains of Tojeiro with music and lights. We hiked through the volunteer-built paths that lined the hillside, weaving our way to a European techno stage before being transported to reggae with blacklight art pieces. Each turn of these mountain paths reminded us just how much community and music lived equally in the heart of our new home.
At one point, I turned to Mike and asked, “Is that a giant worm near the main stage?”
“No, it’s a giant caterpillar sculpture smoking hookah,” recalling the familiar Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland imagery seen on countless bootleg t-shirts and posters.
The experience was everything we wanted and everything we didn’t know we needed all in one Friday night.
Friday Happiness Documentary
[Video: King Boldis Productions]
Truckin’ On Through Portugal
Trusting a guy we met on a train about a rave in the mountains seemed a little crazy… even for us. But that’s how all good stories start. Maybe we got a little lost on the way home and ended up being chased by local farm dogs and pigs while seeking refuge near a freshly dug ditch, but this night made us realize we really did want to experience it all, and we could actually do it.
As we settled into life in Portugal, our days were filled with festivals, small shows, and Portuguese summer events that blended music, food, and culture. We learned to navigate public transit, began speaking and reading Portuguese, and danced all night at concerts in castles and converted prisons. Somewhere between our first concert and doing press at a major Portuguese music festival, MEO Kalorama, we stopped feeling like visitors.
Day 1 MEO Kalorama Lisboa 2024 | Music Festival Mini Vlog
[Video: Roam Away From Home]
The feeling is still surreal. A year earlier, we were living on the road in the U.S., following Dead & Co and Phish, immersed in a tight-knit American jam band scene. Suddenly, we were interviewing artists in Europe, surrounded by locals singing in Portuguese, and realizing that our community wasn’t left behind; it was evolving.
We wanted to continue that trend of evolution by forging our own path.
3. Building Our Music Community In Portugal
Our second year in Portugal shifted from attending as many shows as possible to intentionally creating spaces for other people who wanted to connect with the music, too. The next phase of the music community started at a dive bar in the historic district of Lagos, Portugal.
Shaker Bar isn’t fancy. The décor leans somewhere between your dad’s garage and an English pub, but it’s the kind of place where a beer costs €1.50 and everyone (locals, immigrants, and visitors) gathers for laughs and community.
It was at this little dive bar that the Deadheads of Lagos was formed.
Some of us got on the bus in ‘77, some of us never got a chance to see Jerry, but all of us love the music. This small but loyal crew of jam band lovers with a few curious first-timers meets weekly to talk all things Grateful Dead. Some of our European friends didn’t know the band before; now they’re trading favorite shows and traveling to see Dead cover bands across the E.U.
I know being a Deadhead isn’t a cult, but we’re very committed to and successful with recruiting new members [again, I promise it’s not a cult]. In the U.S., being a Deadhead is a subculture. In Portugal, it’s a curiosity. And it’s this curiosity that has opened conversations faster than our broken Portuguese ever could when we first arrived.
4. Dancing In The Streets, From Lagos To London
There’s something universal about the culture of Deadheads that translates surprisingly well abroad: the emphasis on kindness, community, and showing up for the music and one another. It’s infectious. Through Deadheads of Lagos, we’ve built friendships strong enough to travel abroad together, including a weekend trip to Lisbon to see Dave Matthews Band, then a flight to London for Dark Star Orchestra, followed by a trip to see Bob Weir & Wolf Bros at Royal Albert Hall.
View this post on Instagram
Weekend In London | Dark Star Orchestra At Alexandra Palace
[Video: Roam Away From Home]
The London trips opened our eyes to just how global this community is. We come from different decades and hometowns, but lived life to the same soundtrack (or setlist) and somehow all connected during a once-in-a-lifetime international music adventure.
Rather than flocking to Buckingham Palace or Big Ben, our group braved the tube in record heat, heading to the Crown and Sceptre for 20-minute jams by the U.K.’s premier Grateful Dead cover band, The Grateful Dudes. Again, our priorities were clear.
Proudly wearing our tie-dye concert tees, we knew we were in the right spot as we blended in with the Deadhead crowd rather than sticking out like a rainbow in a sea of neutral colored clothing that seems to be the London uniform.
In this random pub the day before Bob Weir & Wolf Bros at Albert Hall, the global scope of the Grateful Dead blew our minds. We connected with original U.K. Deadheads who last saw Bobby in ‘72, new fans who had learned about the Grateful Dead in school, familiar faces from the DSO shows the year prior, and visitors from around the world, each with a unique story of how they first got on the bus.
Before Bobby even walked onstage at Royal Albert Hall the next day, we were already running into our Deadhead community as we wandered around town. After the show, we swapped travel stories over late-night pints, shared how we were all moved to tears by the orchestra, and laughed about what a long, strange cross-Atlantic trip it’s been.
[Photo: Roam Away From Home — Ah-hoo! Deadheads of London]
The music we thought we left behind and mourned had actually made us feel more at home abroad than we ever expected. When you travel internationally with people you meet in a small beach town, you realize you’ve crossed the threshold from feeling like a stranger to chosen family.
It didn’t stop there. The Swifties in Portugal group kept growing. The Deadhead meetups expanded. We attended more Portuguese shows. Eventually, scenes began to overlap—people curious about one world stepped into the other.
That’s how music works; it connects across barriers of location and language.
5. The Music Never Stopped: What’s Next?
Portugal taught me that music isn’t an escape from reality, it’s a compass. It guides you toward community, understanding, and your most authentic self.
Now, two years after landing, our group of Deadheads abroad is working to host a grassroots celebration of friendship, creativity, and the invisible string of live music that connects us all, the sum of everything we’ve built here. A great jam tends to follow that path: you start by listening, find your groove, and eventually, you create something new together. For us, that next set is called Eyes of the Algarve, a weekend of Grateful Dead music in Portugal. It’s part concert, part reunion, part thank you to Portugal.
Born out of late-night conversations with our Deadheads of Lagos crew, we wanted to capture the spirit of the Grateful Dead—kindness, improvisation, inclusion, joy—and pair it with the beauty of the Algarve. We’re not professional promoters. We’re just a handful of Deadheads with a group chat, a dream, and probably way too many Google Docs.
Weir Everywhere: Eyes Of The Algarve
Maybe that’s what Weir Everywhere really means. It’s not about chasing the same show; it’s about finding new ones that remind you who you are. We hope Eyes of the Algarve will capture that, no matter where you land, the music finds you.
Two years ago, we were lost sailors at a train station in a country we’d never visited, wearing shirts that shouted out for community. Now we’re surrounded by people who understand exactly what that means. The music never stops.
For anyone moving abroad and worrying about starting over: it happens. You’ll find your people. Do what you love; find others who love it. The rest builds itself, one show, one song, one country at a time.