Três trópicos da tropicália

the night of “alegria, alegria”

I embarked on the adventure of “Alegria, alegria” as though fighting for freedom itself. Once the deed was done, I felt the euphoria of one who has bravely broken unbearable chains. Gil, however, aware of the power of MPB at the time and that we were adopting a drastic position in relation to it, feared there might be serious consequences – a thought that in my excitement, managed  to avoid.- and he panicked. The night we were supposed to present “Domingo no Parque,” he hid under the blankets in his hotel room (we were staying at the Danúbio in São Paulo) trembling as though stricken with a sudden fever, and refused to go to the theater. (…) Nana, who herself had sung Gil’s “Bom dia” at the same festival to a booing audience, was making every effort to convince him to confront his destiny. Guilherme Araújo also intervened. The show was halfway through before Paulinho Machado de Carvalho arrived and finally managed to get Gil out of bed. Gil’s presentation was dazzling – OS Mutantes were an apparition from the future. There was a stimulating friction between the Afro-Bahian theme against other sound – Beatles + berimbau or Beatles x berimbau – and Rogério Duprat’s beautiful orchestration gave it all an imposing, respectable air, carrying the audience light-years beyond the moment when, just the day before, it tried to boo “Alegria, alegria.” And Gil himself, cheerful and extroverted as always, gave not the slightest hint of the dread that had overcome him only a few minutes before.