Last Tuesday (02/05/2019) it was New York’s turn to witness what Brazil, South America and Europe had already experienced. And the trio known as “Tribalistas” did not disappoint.

For the first time in roughly 15 years, fans of the Brazilian trio “Tribalistas” can finally attend a live perfomance by them. Arnaldo Antunes, Marisa Monte, and Carlinhos Brown are about to conclude the worldwide tour of their second album “Tribalistas”.

Arnaldo Antunes belonged to the Paulista rock band, “Titãs”. Their height was during the 1980’s and 1990’s, at which time they uniquely blended punk rock and American pop rock influences. Lyrically, the band explored urban, commercial, and social issues. Antunes is also considered a pillar of the Concrete poetry movement in São Paulo.

Marisa Monte is a classically trained musician. She studied opera singing and several instruments in Italy during the 1980’s. Her father Carlos Monte, was the director of the Carioca samba school, Portela. Her exposure to samba and the classical sounds of Carnival in Rio have enriched her compositions and her performances.

Carlinhos Brown is the percussionist of the “Tribalistas”. Brown is from Candeal, in Salvador, Bahia, where he founded a percussion school, The Pracatum Project in 1994. He also formed the award winning percussion group “Timbalada” in the late 1980’s that still preforms today.

At the concert in New York, there were a mix of songs from the first album entitled “Tribalistas”, which are more familiar to the public, and songs from the new album, also entitled “Tribalistas”. Songs like “Velha Infância” (part of a famous Brazilian soap opera soundtrack) and “Já Sei Namorar” (the FIFA theme song during the 2004 world cup) are crowd favorites.

From the new album, the hits are “Diáspora”, which calls attention to the global refugee crisis, the love songs “Aliança” and “Fora da Memória” graced the set list and a selection of songs from their solo efforts. “Água Também é Mar” is known to be the first song the trio ever composed together and its featured on Monte’s solo album “Memórias, Crônicas e Declarações de Amor”.

The band thrilled the audience, especially Brown, who at some point improvised “New York, New York” (composed by John Kander and famously preformed by Frank Sinatra). This was certainly a spontaneous improvisation, but Monte and Antunes were good sports and danced a waltz to the iconic tune. Finally, the band performed the encore in a Brazilian style. They replayed “Velha Infância” and  “Tribalistas”. 

Notes on the venue:

What a disappointment the Hammerstein Ballroom/Manhattan Center was. There was apparently little coordination between the security staff and the venue. A tremendous crowd turned into a disorderly line outside. Also, even though they had sold numbered tickets, the seats weren’t numbered. It must have been very frustrating for the ushers to urge the enthusiastic fans to take their unmarked seats.

The tour: As of the publishing of this post, Tribalistas have 3 more performances in the USA before they head back to South America. (02/15 – Los Angeles, 02/16 and 02/17 – San Francisco). On 03/23 they perform in Buenos Aires, Argentina. They end the tour in São Paulo at the Lollapalooza Brazil Music festival (04/05)