The Bangalafumenga Annual Welcome-Kathleen Party

Just like last year, Bangalafumenga happened to be having a big show in Lapa on the very night I arrived! Coincidence? Clearly not. From now on I'm going to be expecting my own personal welcome-back Bangalafumenga show every time I arrive in Rio.

This was just the "small" Banga band, not the Carnaval bateria. 11 percussionists backing up one singer, one cavaquinho, one electric guitar and.... three brass players! They've added brass. They do a huge variety of Brazilian rhythms, samba being only one. The repertoire's a mix of some favorite samba-enredos, favorite sing-alongs of modern Brazilian MPB and funk and afoxe, and a lot of GOOD originals now too. All of it is structured so that a bateria can be added at any point.

PACKED crowd. Nobody can party like the Brazilians - everybody just starts jumping around like a bunch of bouncing rubber balls. Periodically an eerie reverb would sometimes randomly start up in the massively over-amped sound system. It's a sound effect you only here in Brazil, because it's not reverb at all, it's the entire crowd, that has just started singing along with EVERY word.

All my Banga friends gave me such a warm welcome, such big bear hugs. Even people who don't even really know me. I kept yelling excitedly into everybody's ears, "I just arrived in Rio TODAY! I just got here TODAY! I flew in from the United States TODAY!" Trying to convey to them in one brief shout-over-the-music how hard it was to get back here for this short visit and what it means to me.

I ended up backstage afterwards - swept past the heavy security in Olivia's comet trail - and there was some kind of huge champagne toast going on - happy new year? Carnaval kick-off? Here's to Banga? I'm not really sure, but, whatever, there was champagne spraying everywhere like they'd won the World Cup. I got soaked with champagne and then somehow ended up with my very own bottle. Andre, my snare teacher, also had his very own bottle, so we just started swigging it side by side.



And of course got a really warm, huge, welcome-back from Dudu, who also gave me his usual enthusiastic-but-vague command "We MUST get together! Sometime!" Here's a pic of me and Olivia and Dudu:


Big bear hug from Thiago, who greeted me with his usual happily shouted English (I don't know where he learned his English, but he's STILL the only person here who can pronounce my name.) Ran into Rodrigo next. I always think that Rodrigo will have completely forgotten who I am, especially since he is becoming such a big name now, but he grabbed me and said "We're starting rehearsals in a couple days for our first Carnaval parade on the 12th! Can you play with us??"

A parade on the 12th! That's my very last day here! I can do it! I'd forgotten that Carnaval is so early this year, and that blocos start parades 2 weeks before the official Carnaval weekend, so that January 12th is actually going to the first official bloco Carnaval parade day. Oh my god, I'm actually going to get to parade with Banga again!

Danced till four am. So wired afterwards I couldn't sleep till dawn. I kept telling Olivia, "I'm so happy to be back. I'm so happy to be back."