By Angus MacSwan
LONDON (Reuters) – Gilberto Gil, the beloved elder statesman of Brazilian music, bid a final farewell to London on Wednesday night, playing songs from throughout his career and reminiscing about the three years he spent in exile in the city while his homeland was under military dictatorship.
“I was not killed. I was lucky. That’s why I came to London,” he told the audience at the Royal Albert Hall. It was a city he “learned to love”, he said.
Now aged 81, Gil still looked sprightly, dressed in a blue Nehru jacket, grey slacks and sandals, though his once resplendent Afro hair style has long given way to trim grey.
Taking the stage, he launched into fan favourite “Expresso 2222”. The thousands of Brazilians packing the venerable venue danced and sang along as he played his rock-influenced sambas.
He introduced “Ladeira da Preguica” saying: “This a a song I wrote in London while I was missing my homeland.”
Gil, who hails from Salvador in Bahia state, left for exile in London in 1969 with his friend and fellow musician Caetano Veloso while Brazil was in the grip of a repressive military dictatorship.
The two had helped found the Tropicalia cultural movement, mixing samba and bossa nova with African styles and U.S. and British rock. The military junta deemed them subversive and arrested them, detaining them for nine months before forcing them to choose exile or jail.
Veloso was miserable but Gil, settling in Notting Hill Gate, immersed himself in London life. He helped organise the first Glastonbury festival and played with musicians such as Pink Floyd.
He also absorbed the West Indian culture and reggae music coming out of his neighbourhood, listening to Bob Marley and others.
“I used to eat Jamaican food at the Mangrove,” Gil told the audience, referring to a famed cafe in Notting Hill Gate.
Showing those influences, he played a reggae version of the bossa nova classic “Girl From Ipanema”, then sang Bob Marley’s “No Woman No Cry”, with Portuguese lyrics.
Introducing “Cerebro Eletronico”, he spoke about the dictatorship and the torture, disappearances and killing.
Gil returned to Brazil in 1972 and went on to become a global star and revered national figure. He was even culture minister from 2003 to 2008 in President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s government.
The concert finished like a Carnival party, with fans singing along to “Aquele Abraço”, his love song to Rio de Janeiro and now a virtual national anthem, and “Toda Menina Baiana” his homage to the women of his home state.
(Reporting by Angus MacSwan; Editing by Alex Richardson)
