Grupo Especial Sunday night

Well, it's 4pm and I just woke up - spent all night at Grupo Especial. Dawn was breaking as the Mangueira bateria came thundering past us. It had started to rain too, but nearly the whole crowd stayed till the very end, drenched and exhausted, to see Mangueira. (the oldest escola of Rio, the most famous, the most powerful, and also with the most unique samba rhythm.) 

What a day. The Banga parade that morning, was, I thought, the best Banga parade ever. Crowd estimate was 50,000 people. It had been dumping rain nonstop for the whole carnaval weekend, but, not only did it not rain on Banga, but by the end of the parade the clouds had broken and sun was streaming down as we played our last ciranda. An INTENSELY happy, joyful crowd; tremendously wonderful music. Rodrigo Maranhao said to the crowd "In 14 years it has never rained on a Banga parade. Never."

A few hours later, the sun disappeared again, and by Mangueira it was raining.

Ok, I had this plan of giving the grupo especial report today, but I just got a text from my Cubango buddies (the escola that I played caixa with - in the sambodromo parade - last year) who say they are all going to the Sargento Pimenta bloco's street parade in a few minutes and do I want to come along?

Sargento Pimenta... Sergeant...Pepper? Looking it up I discover it's a new bloco that plays only Beatles songs... with a samba bateria (several hundred drummers playing Brazilian samba). Because, Sambista Commandment Number One: Everything Is Better With A Samba Bateria.

And it's four blocks from my house. As soon as my stupid camera finishes uploading all its Grupo Especial videos I am out of here. But the quick report is: Unidos da Tijuca totally kicked ass and clearly the crowd favorite. The jawdropping baterias last night were Portela (beautiful silky swing and very cool breaks), Imperatriz (now featuring timbal and berimbau!), Unidos da Tijuca (stunning as always), and of course thundering unstoppable Mangueira. 

BTW Mangueira's apparently taken to heart the comment of the judge (friend of a friend of mine in fact) who docked them a tenth of a point recently for lack of innovation - because Mangueira's now got some elaborate breaks, AND a couple of timbals who are dramatically featured in the breaks. (Take that, Imperatriz!) 

And Portela did an amazing job reconstructing its thousand of burned costumes in just three weeks! Some floats were unfinished; I guess maybe they decided to prioritize getting costumes done so all their community members could parade, instead of finishing floats. Good call.

Tonight is the second and final night of Grupo Especial. Me & a Danish saxophone player that I met in Banga are going to try to get done cheap tix from scalpers halfway through the night.

Camera's done. Oh! I can hear Sargento Pimenta approaching outside! Gotta run!