Olodum and Maminal At Hammersmith Palais
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Reviews Misc
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Sunday, 09 July 2006 |
 Hammersmith Palais was supposed to be transformed by a sea of yellow and green on Sunday July 9th as QBrasil took over the venue for their World Cup Finals party. Disappointment and disgust at Brazil’s early exit from the cup may have kept some away but the name Olodum was big enough to draw many others from their collective post-knockout depression. The crowd was happy to see Italy win, well at least it wasn’t France, but the real reason they were there was music not football. Truth be told many turned up well into the second half and hid themselves away munching on Brazilian snacks provided by the specially laid on canteen.
The biggest surprise of the night, apart from the whole Zidane incident obviously, was Maminal. Now I consider myself quite clued up when it comes to Brazilian music but Maminal is a band that seems to have passed me by – or so I thought until they took to the stage and I found my self unknowingly singing along to half of their songs. The band is a collaboration of brothers and friends from Espirito Santo; spurred on by a string of awards in Brazil they now have their sights firmly set on Europe. The band fuses the old and new sounds of Brazil blending samba and reggae with rock, MPB (Brazilian popular music) and pop. They are credited with the creation of the Rockcongo – their unique mish mash of musical styles which just begs to be danced to. Their energy packed performance soon ensured that fans had forgotten al about football, for the time being at least, and the crowd started to flock from the canteen.
While Maminal were impressive, and they did far too much to be referred to as merely a ‘support act’ the real reason everyone were there was Olodum.
Every now and then Olodum raise their colective heads and gain attention outside of Brazil (they have performed in New York’s Central Park and perhaps the slightly less glamorous Battersea Park in London) but in general they remain relatively unknown beyond their homeland. The group was formed in 1979 as a bloco-Afro, an African influenced carnival group in the North-Eastern state of Bahia. As well as remaining a powerful musical force in Bahia and a staple part of yearly carnival celebrations the group is also an NGO dedicated to cultural activism in the struggle against racial discrimination and socioeconomic inequality.
During carnival the group parades through the streets with hundreds of drummers and singers not mention the thousands of costumed revellers/members. While the Hammersmith Palais couldn’t quite accommodate a show of those proportions the drummers who did manage to squeeze onto stage provided a rare glimpse of what carnival in Brazil might be like. The sounds of so many different drums quickly hypnotised the audience and the addition of more harmonic such as a cavaquinho, bass guitar, and keyboard furthered this effect. Their music is a combination of musical styles borrowing heavily from Black cultures around the world; Brazilian samba is of course a major influence but so two is Caribbean reggae and a plethora of other African rhythms.
From more information on both Olodum and QBrasil check out: www.qbrasil.com
Olodum and Maminal Live at Hammersmith Palais, QBrasil’s World Cup Final Party, Sunday 9th July
Words By: Joe Kent
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