Reunited Brazilian band Os Mutantes starts US tour

By Adriana Garcia

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain was a big fan,
while Beck and David Byrne have paid homage. Nearly 30 years
after it broke up, Brazilian psychedelic rock band Os Mutantes
launched its first U.S. tour on Friday in New York.

An offshoot of Brazil’s Tropicalia movement of the late
1960s that emerged in reaction to a U.S.-backed military
dictatorship and led by artists such as Caetano Veloso,
Gilberto Gil and Tom Ze, Os Mutantes (The Mutants) combined
various unlikely influences.

The group won an offbeat reputation by synthesizing the
Beatles’ “Sergeant Pepper” style with traditional Brazilian
folk rhythms and classical music. It even used insecticide
sprayers as instruments to create a “ffffft” sound.

Formed by a trio of Sao Paulo teenagers, Os Mutantes’
irreverence “shocked and irritated the leftist university
crowd,” Brazilian music critic Carlos Calado wrote.

“Mutantes, Gil and Caetano were labeled as alienated and
accused of having sold out to North American imperialists.”

Its lyrics even mixed different languages, including
Portuguese, English, Spanish and French.

Britain’s Mojo music magazine has called its eponymous
first album in 1968 “one of the greatest psychedelic records of
all time.”

On the tour that began in London in May are two of the
founding members: brothers Sergio Dias (voice and guitars) and
Arnaldo Baptista (voice and keyboards), plus original drummer
Ronaldo “Dinho” Leme. Rita Lee, the original lead singer, opted
out, but gave the tour her blessing.

Taking her place is Rio de Janeiro-based Zelia Duncan, who
said: “This was like a gift that fell in my lap. They are a
living legend.”

The band last toured in 1973, and eventually broke up in
1978.

The hundreds of U.S. and Brazilian fans who turned up for
the concert at Webster Hall screamed for hits such as Gilberto
Gil’s “Bat Macumba.” The group obliged, also performing
classics “Baby,” “Panis Et Circenses” and “Balada do Louco.”

Dias, 55, who wore a musketeer costume for the show, told
Reuters afterward that the band rehearsed for 500 hours before
the tour and that he deliberately kept the original
arrangements unchanged.

“We knew that people were going to come to see our music as
it was, so we decided to preserve them,” he said, adding,
“We’re having a lot of fun playing together again.”

Next on the U.S. tour is a concert at the Hollywood Bowl in
Los Angeles on Sunday, followed by shows in San Francisco,
Seattle, Denver and Chicago running to the end of July.