GALERA! WE ALL HAVE TO PLAY SURDO!

I just want to get this one down quickly before I forget it. Dudu's new group was supposed to play at a little bloco parade in Botafogo last Thursday (the evening of Carnaval, which officially started Friday), but - very long backstory here that I am skipping - we ended up having to throw a tiny bateria (drum group) together at the last second. Anyway, the result was that on Thursday night, Olivia and a friend of hers and I are all piled into a car looking for this unknown little parade in Botafogo and we can't find a parking spot. Olivia's in the back seat on the phone with Dudu and she starts laughing to us "There's only going to be 6 people." So... a bateria for a parade is normally at least 30-40 people - for the big samba escolas it's over 400 drummers - and we're going to be just 6 people total? With more than 6 instruments parts to cover? With a repertore that none of us knows? And I haven't been playing any of this stuff in years.... Olivia jokes, "I think we're going to be the entire surdo section". (Bass drum.) We break up laughing over this because the surdo section is actually pretty damn critical, there are 3 separate parts to play, it's almost always big tough guys and here we are just 3 girls (and me a gringa). And you really need to have players who know the repertoire solid to cover the 3 different surdo parts. Olivia says to her friend, who is driving, "You're going to have to be second surdo". The look of sheer panic that flashes over the friend's face sends both Olivia and me into hysterics. The friend comes out suddenly with "Did I ever tell about the time I ended up in this bloco full of these experienced escola guys and somehow they put me on first surdo and I was the only first surdo and I'd never played first surdo in my life and they nearly killed me?" She launches into the story, we're getting into more hysterics, we still can't find a parking spot, we're circling around and around. Olivia gets another call from Dudu. She reports, "He says they really need us! He's not joking! We have to get there NOW!" More dithering about parking. The friend is thinking now about what she will actually play - maybe snare drum? perhaps shaker? Olivia yells from the back seat, "GALERA!" (one of my favorite Portuguese words - literally "gallery", it means something like, "Hey gang!"). She yells, "GALERA! WE ALL HAVE TO PLAY SURDO!" - and something about the mock-desperation in her voice gets us all laughing again.

We manage to find a tiny dead-end street, clearly resident parking only, patrolled by a parking guard of some kind who looks at us suspiciously. Olivia's friend puts down her window and pleads to the guy, still nearly choking with laughter, "For the love of god can you find us somewhere to park? We're supposed to be in that bloco on the next street over and it's starting right now!" Olivia yells from the back seat, "WE'RE THE ENTIRE SURDO SECTION!" and we all bust out laughing again, including the parking guy. He actually manages to find us a spot and makes us move the car a few times till it's wedged up onto the sidewalk.

Anyway, we get there, and WE ARE IN FACT THE ENTIRE SURDO SECTION just as Olivia predicted. This is getting too surreal for words now and I can't believe that we are, in fact, the entire surdo section, and am further horrified when Dudu makes me.... the only first-surdo player. (It occurs to me right about now that he doesn't know I haven't played surdo in five years). It also turns out we are playing for a modern-dance group that starts off with a choreography to "Age of Aquarius". There's a singer standing up on top of a tiny pickup truck festooned with flags, and she starts belting out out "When the MOOOOOOOOON is in the seventh HOOOOOOUUUUSE" (in a Brazilian accent) and we're trying to drum along with the recording, and the modern dance group is leaping around and a huge number of drunk people with funny hats on their heads have appear out of nowhere and are starting to follow us, along with a dozen or so beer vendors, and somewhere in there I realize that this parade is going to end up on my "Weird Gigs" lifetime list. 

Later, the dance group do a piece about "filth" that for downright mystifying reasons seems to require the dancers wearing trash bags on their head and rolling around on the ground. I wish I were joking; I am not; they put trash bags on their heads and rolled around on the ground; I have proof, I took a video; and it goes on for over three minutes. It was about at this point that the gig shot to #1 on the Weird Gigs List.

But then a miracle happens. Dudu drafted some of his excellent musician friends to play along with us (i.e., actual melody instruments), and as soon as the dance group turns us loose to play on our own (rather than trying to play along to an only-half-audible recording of "Age of Aquarius"), a huge crowd accumulates around us and everybody is dancing and suddenly it becomes one of the most unexpectedly fun parades I've ever done. Dudu has me playing a sort of doubled part at first - both first and second surdo on one drum - then switches me to first, then switches me to second, I guess because he doesn't want me to get too comfortable or anything (or possibly I was screwing up too much). Olivia and her friend are both on third beside me and thank god they actually know a lot of Dudu's surdo repertoire, but I'm of course completely clueless about everything and Dudu's having to mime parts in the air at me. I'm doing pretty well though (I think?), except for a slight rush that keeps creeping into my hands out of nervousness, but not too bad really, for my first time on first or second surdo in five damn years! - and alone on the parts in a Carnaval parade with some of Rio's best musicians at my side with a bunch of dancers rolling around on the ground with trash bags on their heads. Not too bad at all. Now, you gotta understand, I've played with Monobloco, I've played with Banga, I've played with Rio Maracatu, I've played with a lot of great groups; but this weird little Botafogo gig ends up being my favorite bloco experience of the entire 2014 Carnaval.