Word: brazilian
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...festival site, albeit larger than most. The festival is all about product placement, advertising and naked commerce. Huge billboards sprout up from the walls around the festival, signs for GE and Nextel, Direct TV and Polaroid 'I-Zone' cameras, and one desperately commercial sign in which a brand of Brazilian beer seems to be ejaculating its contents. Outside the walls hundreds of local kids, mostly in their teens, roam about, most shirtless, some playing guitar, others asking for tickets, others seemingly satisfied to simply watch the vans and VIPs and visitors pass by. I notice that most of the Brazilians...
...like the grounds for a massive county fair, with various tents rising up in the distance, capped by large balloons and corporate logos. Tenda Rock in Rio Eletro is the electronica tent, and as I pass by I can see laser lights flickering and trance music pumping and sweaty Brazilians dancing. Tenda Raizes (by this point I've figured out that "tenda" probably means "tent") features various roots artists from around the world, from Varttina (a Finnish group with peppy female lead singers) to Heri Dikongue (a guitarist and singer from Cameroon). Tenda Brasil, another stage, is a showcase...
...follow classical music. The group was so startlingly loud I didn't really look up to see whether they were actually playing "Also Spach Zarathustra" or whether it was prerecorded. I was doubled up in surprise. When the sound subsided, Milton Nascimento, one of the heroes of Brazilian music, came out and sang a duet of John Lennon's "Imagine" with Gilberto Gil, another hero of Brazilian music. This was a high point - the Beatles have always been big in Brazil, and the Tropicalia movement was in part inspired by the Fab Four's creativity. The music that immediately followed...
...Milton Nascimento came out for his set next. He cuts a striking figure onstage - dreads down to his shoulders, a dark headband holding them in place, clad in a simple white tunic and flowing white pants. His music is a stew of many ingredients - Brazilian spices, West African meat, European pop broth. Nascimento seems to view the world as his supermarket, throwing in his musical cart Portuguese fado, South African juju music and, of course, bossa nova rhythms from his native country. His first song popped and burbled with township jive, and the emotional high point was reached when...
...high-spirited, melodious cover of Bob Marley's "Is This Love" finishing with a lusty cry of "Bob Marley!" After Gil's superb set, I wandered over to the Tenda Brasil to take in a performance by Luiz Melodia. He's something of a cult figure/ elder statesman in Brazilian music, effortlessly blending samba and the blues; imagine a middle-aged South American Robert Johnson and you've pretty much got it. He with two acoustic guitarists on either side. He started out with the song "Fadas" a graceful, toe-tapping tune that that skips along as lightly...