A fairly rum thing this, I couldn’t decide if I was attending a gig, or had descended Tron-like into the bowels of a beer advertisement.  A certain Brazilian beverage (£3 for 330mls, if you please) was sponsoring a few days of gigs in London, plastering their name all over the tube and (with epilepsy-inducing flashes and colours) all over the innards of the Kentish Town Forum for this one. 

There was a display of the Brazilian is-it-a-dance-or-a-fight capoeira (a square dance or a square go?) beforehand , with two men tumbling about in an ever-decreasing circle for an ever-decreasing number of viewers.  By the end probably only about six people got to see any more than the occasional flash of foot emerging with admirable dexterity from the crowd at over head height. 

Brazilians Bonde De Role had a rapper touching herself in all her rude places and shouting at us over a selection of naff records, including the Grease soundtrack.  Really, I thought to myself, did Salt’N'Pepa die for this? 

Os Mutantes were rather more enjoyable.  Featuring original members Sergio Dias and Arnaldo Baptista, although not original vocalist Rita Lee (who has denounced this comeback as an attempt to “earn cash to pay for geriatry”), they cantered with good humour and confusing ‘twixt-song banter (did I really hear a song being dedicated to Henry V?  And what was all that stuff about Tony Blair?) through their catalogue, with “Tecnicolor” and Mendes tribute “Cantor De Mambo” being personal favourites.  

 

They saved the big ones for last, with a bafflingly sludgy “A Minha Menina” and a gloriously batty “Bat Macumba” sending the whole audience batshit.  It has been about 40 hours since the gig has ended, and those crazy cross-cut lyrics are still arguing with themselves in my head.  Batmacumba ê ê, batmacumba oba!