Lamb

Lamb are unusually popular here in Portugal. And when I say popular, I mean really HUGE! It is a wild guess, maybe, but I believe Portugal is the only contry where they have a really mainstream kind of popularity.
It all started back in 1996. Lamb were one of the fétiche-projects of a Lisbon (Portugal's capital city) alternative radio station (which unfortunatelly RIPed the following year) called XFM (yes, just like the British alternative station as well), already at a stage when all that Lamb had released were the "Cotton Wool" and "Gold" 12" singles! By the time their self-titled debut album hit the shelves, Lamb became a house-hold name in the Portuguese alternative circles. The LP even got a great placing in most of the major music publications in the country.
In 1997, Lamb performed live for the first time in Portugal, in a small Lisbon venue that was sold out. What was seen as media hype was becoming, steadily and easily, also a people's hype.
"Fear Of Fours", in 1999, consolidated the duo in critical and especially in sales terms, with the album making a splash in the national Top 30 chart in the first month of release. More concerts in bigger venues followed, and it was becoming clear that it was just a matter of time before Lamb made the jump from cult act to a full-fledged mainstream phenomenon.
But nothing prepared us for what happened in 2001. "What Sound" entered the national Top 5 album list, even managing of being short of actually topping it, when it reached number 2 and earning double platinum certification (80 000 copies in Portugal). In large part, most of the credit for that explosion must go to the radio-phenomenon that accompanied the lead-single of this album. "Gabriel" started to pop-up at radio during the Summer, only to take hold of the airwaves soon enough, becoming one of the most requested and played songs ever in the entire Portuguese radio broadcast history (official data). The song can be heard even today at many occasions, easily becoming Lamb's signature song in Portugal.
As one can conclude, the Portuguese shows became even bigger, reaching some of the most important and larger concert venues in the country to a really diversified crowd.