big excitement hit london this week when os mutantes came to town. this article in the guardian is informative (explains why rita lee won’t be onstage). however, I was really annoyed that it gave full credit to david byrne and his luaka bop label for any sort of renewed interest in mutantes. surely he played a part in it but it was the new york-based omplatten label (run by ex-matadork johan kugelberg and other music founding owner jeff gibson) that reissued three of its albums at the same time as the luaka comp, if not earlier (and many of us were just buying the imports!). so yeah! (also a certain chickfactor staffer handed off the pictured LP to one stevie jackson of belle & sebastian at the bowlie weekender in april 99, prompting his own band to head off to brazil at some point and perform a cover of ‘baby’!).so naturally we were at the barbican on 22 may 2006 for the first mutantes show since 1973 or something. clearly insane (and I’m not just talking about their sartorial choices here, but oh. my. god.), the brothers sergio and arnaldo baptista and drummer ronaldo “dinho” leme turned up for the reunion, as well as lia duncan, a lacklustre singer standing in for rita lee. also onstage were pretty much anyone else they met on the street, dressed in black and white, the backing singers were fun to watch but the white girl with dreadlocks drummer was a percussionist of the worst (“look at me!”) kind, ugh. I guess we should be thankful they only had as few percussionists as they did as brazilian bands seem to think quality music begins with having 18 drummers on one very crowded stage. so the lows: making the audience wait a superlong time to begin the show; where was opening act devendra banhart? he only appeared during an encore to dance like a loon with the vetiver dude, and yes, they do look like the rhythm section from hot tuna; the metal posturing; the over-the-top-ness of it all, which was just too too much much of the time (rufus wainwright comes to mind in trying to layer on the over-the-pop-ness); really, really missing rita lee on “baby” (duncan’s voice just too low), though even gal costa couldn’t quite please us with her version a few weeks ago (yes, let’s not forget that caetano veloso wrote some of mutantes’ best tunes). the highs: an audience heavy with ultra-enthusiastic brazilians and even mildly excited londoners, to hear the noise in there you would have thought it was the greatest concert in history, I don’t think I’ve ever heard such a happy audience in london; amid the noodly, the metal and the ugly moments were moments of genius, moments to remind us why we’d paid £30 a ticket, to remind us that we were locked in a historical moment, such as hearing “panis et circensis”, for me the first mutantes song I’d ever popped into my cd player. so yeah, put on your rose coloured shades, your fur vest, your velvet trousers, chemically enhance yourself if that’s your bag, and get a ticket now — we’re aware of at least three mutantes shows this summer in new york, chicago, and los angeles. let’s hope the summer festival bookers wise up and snag these guys for tons more shows…
