My 1st Match Day in Rio

I woke up very early to get the sound check ready for the Sugar Loaf gig. Our drummer Carlos is absolutely scared of heights and he got in the cable car very hesitating. That was funny. At his side there was a cute girl but he remained with his eyes closed under his sunglasses during the ascent so we joked about it for a while. We installed our equipment and waited for the sound crew to be ready. In the free time I got Carlos to be my camera man to interview some ‘outsiders’ visiting the place.

I got a guy from Ireland, two girls from São Paulo and a Chinese guy as well. The last one was very hard to get on camera, hesitating a lot, but he was wearing our complete uniform and I didn’t want to miss that. The beer up there was really expensive but I could not help myself. The excitement and anticipation for the first game was overwhelming. Party was all I wanted to do before and (mainly) after the game.

I was taking the picture of the ESPN crew to post here and they asked me to be interviewed. “Do you speak English?” A little. “Do you speak Spanish?” Sorry, no. The beautiful girl asked what was my prediction: “Brazil 3, Croatia 1.” Damn! I was really wrong, even so I asked to take a picture with her and the Espn microphone… awwww she was so nice! She grabbed me so close I could feel her delightful perfume. I didn’t get her name but THANK YOU Espn girl!!!!

A girl, friend of mine, noticed I was a little shy to take photos of some cuties up there and she decided to help me. I hope the photos translate the atmosphere of the antecipation to you all. Anyway, the sound check was fine and the crowd was there. People were wearing many customized shirts instead of the Nike expensive one. That was really cool! The girl I mentioned before was wearing a shirt with the word ‘Carioca’ on it. Very cute! If you already don’t know, Carioca is how you call a person born in the city of Rio de Janeiro. Our band manager got us some Mané Sagaz shirts too.

At the time of the game people rushed to the screens, of course. There were 4 big plasma screens and two big projection screens, one with 2 x 2 meters and the stage/arena one with 4 x 4 meters. I was watching a World Cup game outside my house for the first time and it was really fun. I tried to record something inside the arena but it was very dark. Even the photos were terrible. I was celebrating, hugging my friends while shooting so nothing good came out of that.

The band performance was good but the sound crew was terrible and the sound check was absolutely ignored. The people watching the show danced and all but… the sound wans’t good at all. Anger!!! We decided not to play there again.

After we left the stage I met many friends I didn’t know were present and the rest of the night was cool. Really cool! In spite of the sunny day the temperature fell to about 18 degrees Celsius after the sun waved goodbye. My friends are used to call me ‘penguin’ because I like cold weather but many people were caught by surprise and remained inside the covered arena. I had some more beer and went home. I slept very well with beer in my head and victory in my heart. A slim victory, but I believe Parreira and the players will fix the team before sunday.

Here are the images of my Brazilian match day. I hope you enjoy it.