O Caetano. Photo by Fernanda Negrini.
By Benedict Sinclair
Despite his age, Caetano Veloso refuses to slow down. Showcasing his latest album, Cê (Nonesuch), on Nov. 17 at the Masonic Center, Veloso clattered around on stage - dancing between verses, jogging in place, invigorating each section of the audience with jumping and waving. You’d think he was younger than his bandmates, none of whom appeared to have passed the 25-year mark.
And maybe that’s the best possible thing he could have done: surround himself with a trio of hot young musicians, positively seething with chemistry and chops, clearly still having fun, still discovering music and the world it inhabits. His trio - a drummer, an electric guitarist, and a bassist who doubled on a twinkly old Fender Rhodes - navigated from delicate bossa to surf-infused pop, bouncing across minimalist polyrhythms.
Back in the day, Veloso mixed traditional Brazilian samba sounds with the most adventurous strains of American and British '60s rock and pop, and in the process, he carved out - and fused - a new genre: tropicalia. He hasn’t stopped working on it since he started in the mid-'60s. Songs linked swiftly to each other throughout the show, further exploring a mood or abruptly changing styles. The group went from rockier tunes to those with softer arrangements: mallets on drums, hushed keyboard textures.
Then Veloso went acoustic for a few solo numbers. One tune sported the hook, “eu odeio-o” or “I hate you.” Veloso told of a friend who was moved by how, as a statement is sung more intensely, the melody becomes tender. “It might be the truth,” he said, “that saying 'I hate you' can be the strongest way of saying 'I love you.'”
The San Francisco audience is to be both commended and reprimanded. Sure, almost every seat was full. That said, it also seems like San Francisco audience members are incapable of clapping on the beat. On one uptempo number, in particular, the audience’s accompaniment was so embarrassingly slow that the drummer could be seen fighting against its grain. It was just a small band, in an ocean of people lost in a rhythm they didn’t comprehend.
When the ensemble disappeared at the set's end, the crowd brought them back out with fierce applause. Veloso's group responded with an immaculate set including a few classics from the ‘70s. Veloso seduced his listeners to come closer, and people left their seats to approach the stage and be nearer to him. Women - and one man - rushed the stage to kiss him, and Veloso, smiling wisely, kept singing.
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Comments (1)
ooh, i like that! i like that a lot.
Posted by morgan klein | November 20, 2007 02:13 AM