I ended up going, straight out of the office. Gritted my teeth and plunked down 1,200 for the cheapest ticket (it turns out you could sit anywhere, so it made no sense to buy anything pricier)
In fact I may have gone there too early, because I had to endure the opening bands Guarana and Sitti. Not that they aren't very good in their own right if you actually went out of your way to watch them, but because the crowd was waiting to hear Flora and Airto, it was a little excruciating having to wait it out. Sitti is visually a stunner so now I know why Aya Yuson wants to date her. But I actually got bored waiting, I ended up surfing on my 3G phone and kept on going to the beer bar for drinks. Saw a lot of people from the Pinoyjazz list like Obese one Kenobi. I also saw Purplehaze with a camera and then regretted not having bringing my camera equipment in my car that day, all I had was a crappy cameraphone. By the bar, Lourd de Veyra was funny, complaining about the bar running out of beer.
But then Airto's band came on stage, its like the energy lifted the whole stage. After having to listen to the local bands try to approximate a Brazillian vibe, hearing real Brazillians play the music was like drinking a shot of espresso after a lifetime of swilling down Blend 45. I was also inspired to write a review for
www.philmusic.com. (Hope purplehaze sends me his photos so I can post it).
By the way, was the overweight girl on stage with the killer voice actually Flora and Airto's daughter? She sounded just like Flora when she was younger. The real Flora can't hit the high notes as effortlessly anymore.
