The Lions at Fundo de Quintal

Friday night. Tear through a last-minute VamoLa costume and run flat out of time on it. No time for the silver trim, extra peacock feathers or silver Mardi Gras beads; just no time. Make 3 beds for my expected Lions guests. Now I'm down to the wire. I heap all the stuff I will need for Solstice tomorrow in a little pile: my repinique, strap and stick; my whistle; the caixa, strap & sticks for Justin; tamborim for Garrett; chocalho for Uma; a spare drumstick for the water wagon; a tiny bag that will hold my cell phone, id and money. I pile my costume, such as it is, on top, a messy concoction of silver lame with not enough feathers. Next to that, a small box with sunblock, makeup and glitter.

No time left. It's already 9 and Pauline has left me a voicemail saying that the Lions bus has arrived in Seattle! I grab my 18" surdo, put on my Lion whites, and run out the door to drive a half-hour south to the Fundo de Quintal show.

I've been looking forward to this show for ages. Fundo de Quintal is Rio's premier pagode group. (They are the group that more or less invented pagode.) I don't know if they've ever played in Seattle before,but it is a hugely rare event to have them here, and all the Brazilian community came. It just makes it extra special that I could play with the Lions too at this show. I've made several trips to Portland in the last couple weeks for Lions rehearsals for this show.

I love Fundo, by definition, but the sound in the hall was pretty bad... and I REALLY wish they hadn't had a drumset player!! Why, why, why have a drumset when you've already got a full line-up of the best percussionists in Rio? I couldn't even hear the repique-de-mao. Oh well. They are fabulous musicians, just the same, and I had a great time anyway.

Finally, time for the Lions. We all got our drums on and assembled in a long column at the entry way. Randy was peering around the corner at the stage to see when Fundo was actually finishing. The crowd kept chanting "Mais um!" (one more!) and Fundo played one encore, then another.... much of the crowd was already leaving. Finally: time. Randy led us down the ramp with a ripping repinique solo, and the remaining crowd came flying over to our side of the hall, wedging up tight to see us, even standing on the tables. Randy called us in and POW, once again, that shimmering air, the fire of that unstoppable Lions momentum. We started off unbelievably fast, Mangueira tempo, Salgueiro tempo, ridiculous tempo! It was so fast I couldn't even do half my usual third-surdo stuff - forget those rolls! We must've been at 155 or something insane. But the momentum and adrenalin was uncontainable and I started ripping on the surdo harder than I ever have. I could hear David and Jeremy behind me - my favorite third-surdo trio. I was flanked by two wonderful caixas and had the tamborims right in front, and always could hear the rock-solid certainty of the thundering of the firsts and seconds (such a treat to play with firsts and seconds that solid...)

Randy did some unbelievable repinique solos. He's such a beautiful player.

People have been asking me a lot recently if I could lead the Lions next year (I haven't been angling for this at all - I think they're asking me just because they know I lead a group in Seattle, and because I've spent so much time in Rio.) I'd started to consider the thought, unlikely as it was, but watching Randy tonight, all I could think was "There is no way in holy hell that I could ever lead these breaks that well or play repinique a tenth that well." Randy is just an incredible player, and plus, he's just so confident and solid calling those breaks. With all that fire and thunder all around, I can't believe he could even think, let alone count out where to place a break. And his solos, jeez, so beautiful.

The dancers were phenomenal, the crowd electrified the whole time. We had what seemed like dozens of incredible dancers in fantasias (probably really only about 8, but it sure seemed like a lot) - and every damn one of them was a top-flight samba dancer on a full adrenalin high, which is something to see when there's even just one of them, so imagine EIGHT of them in that state and you might get the idea.....

Then all four of the huge blue Portela outfits came shimmying out. I'venever seen four of those out at once. The Portela outfits are huge contraptions of feathers, silver spikes and glittery blue-and-black streamers (they're from one of the Portela escola's Carnival parades some years ago.) They are so outrageously elaborate that it's hard to recognize that there is a dancer inside. I could see them above everybody's heads, four huge architectures of blue feathers and silver streamers, shimmying and samba'ing over to us in a vibrating fury of blue. It looked exotically inhuman, like an alien invasion from Planet Samba. The crowd was floored at first, then ecstatic, then uncontainable. A man in the front row kept screaming at the top of his lungs. We went through most of the choreographies, our best breaks, then invited the crowd to come dance, and did they ever.

We only played about forty minutes, but we sure made every minute count. I finished the show buzzing with adrenalin and unable to stop moving. I glanced down at my hand to find a huge, throbbing double blood blister - two blisters joined at the side, both full of bright red blood. I could poke it and shove the blood around - cool! Plus 2 other large subsidiary blisters (the ordinary kind, no blood) and a big scrape and bruise on my knuckles from bashing my hand into a lug. I'd totally shredded my hand again - shit, and I have to play tomorrow! what was I thinking?

Some of Fundo de Quintal even applauded us as we passed by them going into the dressing room. Backstage, people's eyes were glittering, wide astonished smiles, thrilled happy looks everywhere.

We sure did give them a show, didn't we??

What a great band.