Salgueiro & Vila Isabel at the Sambodromo

Went to the Sambodromo last night for Salgueiro and Vila Isabel. I gotta say, the Salgueiro bateria is on fire this year! All the baterias are always more or less fantastic in terms of their playing ability. What makes the difference for me is the song itself (catchy or not?), the breaks (musical? or annoying? or none?), and the energy. And Salgueiro has it all this year.

I haven't heard a lot of the songs yet but Salgueiro's the only one that gets stuck in my head. I really like it. And their breaks are good, they've got some fun choreography, but oh man, it's the ENERGY that's off the scale this year. As usual there are a few breaks where (say) just caixas & thirds keep playing, or just tambs, or whatever, and every time one of those breaks happened, the entire rest of the bateria put their hands in the air and started screaming and yelling and jumping. I know it was planned, but there was a genuine energy in it and it was totally infectious, and the whole crowd started screaming. Several of the primeiro & segundo players would hoist their surdos in the air whenever they had the opportunity, Olodum-style, and I saw at least one tamborim player throw his tamborim about 20 feet in the air (I hope he caught it again! couldn't see).

(Vila Isabel's also got a shekere player who does a pretty dramatic throw. But for some reason it had Salgueiro's colors! A blue-and-white bateria with a red-and-white shekere flying high in the air.)

And Salgueiro had the best throatiest yell of any bateria: FURIOSA!!! Could have been cheesy but it was electrifying.

Furiosa's the nickname for the Salgueiro bateria. They've almost all got a nickname that is plastered all over their t-shirts & often on the drum heads:
Mangueira - Bateria Surdo Um ("One Surdo", because they have no segunda)
Salgueiro - Bateria A Furiosa ("Furious", also meaning intense, wild)
Unidos da Tijuca - Bateria Pura Cadencia ("Pure Cadence" or "Pure Rhythm")

I was cracking up last year when I spotted that one was Bateria Nota Dez (Score Ten, the top score), and another was Bateria Nota Mil (Score Thousand, an impossible score), and another, topping them all, Bateria Dez Mil (Bateria Ten-Thousand).

Vila Isabel yelled their enredo instead: "Trabalhadores! Do Brasil!" which is their enredo (theme) this year.

will post mp3s of the two bateria warm-ups as soon as I get back to my own computer.

Had my usual Sambodromo experience of having both my camera & sound recorder out, and having some friendly concerned Brazilian tap my on the shoulder to say "Cuidado com as maquinas!! Cuidado! E muito perigoso aqui!" They're right, it is muito perigoso, but the danger is much more having your bag sneakily ripped open from behind than having something snatched out of your very hand. I always feel safest with the recorder out, gripped tight in my hand and visibly tied to my wrist.

Anyway the woman & I then started talking and she's one of those great Brazilians who's a complete escola junkie. She started ticking off on her hands: "I've paraded with Caprichosos de Pilares, Uniao da Ilha, Imperio Serrano, Salgueiro, and Portela." I asked "In different years?" and she said "No no, in the same day! I paraded with all five in the same day! I would finish one parade and run then around the Sambodromo, past my car where I had all the costumes, and change my costume, and run to the next escola."

She added sadly "But I can't do that this year because my car was stolen in December." She added "Sem carro, nao vai dar, com as fantasias" - without a car, it just won't work, with the costumes. (Usually two costumes can completely fill a car, so I can't imagine how she did 5!) I had just read in the paper today that a car was stolen every 12 minutes last year in Rio. I wanted to ask her if her insurance would cover it, but the Salgueiro bateria started up.