Lisbon!

March 3rd
Lisbon!
We left the picturesque rural “coffee table book” countryside and pummeled into the urban landscape, eager for a little taste of Portuguese nightlife and boom-chaka-laka!

Lisbon is a crazy city, older than many, and the legacy of empires, occupations and layers of mingling cultures is apparent everywhere you go, with 3-6 story brick multi colored concrete buildings crammed in amongst each other like crooked teeth in a moorish invader. Most of the city was built a long time ago, then there was an earthquake and it was rebuilt…there is a strange juxtaposition between old and new buildings, as the central part is very old, and suddenly, on the outside the 1980s kick in with lots of ugly condos…anyway, lots to see and do….and see and do we did.

DAY ONE!

We stayed at a big hotel right downtown, just north of the old district. It was fab and we could look out over the city onto all of the shbang! That night, a couple of dancers we met on Myspace came to our hotel with their boyfriend and friend who played bass clarinet, to jam out some ideas for the Lisbon show they were going to dance at…It was a great was to say hello to Lisbon - right away meeting some local bohems. We got along famously of course…They dance Gypsy/Flamenco/Bellydance and were great…we soon became good friends..

Video of us doing a mating dance with one of them in the room:

The next day, we experience something that I don’t think any of us expected. We agreed to appear on national television on a morning show called FATIMA. It is a very well known show that airs every morning and has been for 25 years. While the show is famous, it was a bizarre place for Vagabond Opera, and the day was HI-larious!

We had to be there at 8am (a feat unto itself) and spent the morning in the dressing room and studio, practicing, getting makeup done and chatting with the staff…

We rehearsed our one song in the studio first…OH! I forgot to mention: iN Portugal, when a band plays on TV as a guest, especially on shows like this, they don’t actually Play! They do what is called Playback (lip-syncing to Americans). We did not realize this until a couple of days before, and had to quickly adjust our attitudes….That in itself made the show ironically worth it.

The set was bright, trendy and tacky and full of hip looking chicas and studs who just sat in the background looking cool and interested (although most looked bored)

Here is a pic of the rehearsal on set:

Lesley with her “New look” after the Fatima make-up stars got to her:

Here is a short, amateur clip from backstage, as we are about to go on, just for fun:

Check back to this blog for a VIDEO clip of us LIVE on the show!

The show itself was a riot: before we went on the air, they had a weird talking puppet guy, and then an expert on Hemorrhoids. That was truly fascinating, truly. No, really it was.
Then us. We lip-synced our little hearts out, and then Mark got to be interviewed by Fatima. Mark is Brazillian and so gets to be our spokesperson all to often….

That night, we went to a college where our promoter works at, and did a showcase for the media and students there. It was cool to see the school and some students before us, where part of a swing/cabaret club that just started putting on cabaret parties in Lisbon, so they brought in some dancers and made the place all swell. They said no one in Lisbon does that, so they craved it…

Me and Jason with the candy gals….

The band backstage before going on. The school was blue, and so were we (but happy)

DAY TWO!
We finally had a day off to be tourists. Everyone did something different…Eric hopped busses and met random people, Mango, Mark and Skip went around town and Jason and I did the mega tourist jaunt, through the entire cool part of the city. This is not so VO, but for fans of travel, here are a couple of pics:

That night, we played our only CABARET show of the tour, at an old and stylish joint called club Maxime. It was daring, it was dreamy, it was red and gold and dirty…perfect.
We played to a rowdy, laughing audience and had our luvly Portuguese dancers Marta and Rita join us on stage….
We made and met tons of new friends, including Donatello, a charming and wonderful Lisbon musician, who connected us to tons of more feel good folks…we stayed up all night in the bar drinking and eating birthday cake for Marta’s birthday…!
We learned to sing happy birthday in Portuguese as well…

Before the show Mark and I found some sombreros for the show
AYAYAYAYAYAYA!!!

Ravella, onstage:

After another day off, we left Lisbon with joy in our hearts and headed back up the coast to the town of Figuera de Foz…Hi-YA!!!