Sunday, December 7, 2008

(Fini)to

Wow, its Sunday and we are leaving tonight.  We can't believe its over.  We'll post a longer sum up of the trip once we get back, but just a few things about our last few days here.

I can't remember what happened on what days but, since Jethros, we had our gig in Campinas, playing at Bar do Ze. We played with the Venus Volts, who kicked some serious ass and are nice as hell to boot.  It was a great show, there was one dude up front really freaking out and getting down.  Sergio told us, sound and performance together, it was our best show so far of the trip.  At that point, we were definitely getting into the zone of playing every night, and we were sounding tight.  We sold some more CDs, hung with Vanessa, Anita, Pele and others, and headed back to Sao Paulo.

At some point we went to Chico Burger, which was the shit.  The best burgers we had in Sao Paulo.  When you order, you order a 'cheese bacon'.  Holy crap, best Acai I've had here in Brasil as well.  Man I'm really going to miss that stuff, it is truly incredible.

OK, we had a day off, bummed around and rested.  We had planned to go to the beach, but Sergio casualy mentioned to us that he had to sell his car today (???) so we had to take care of that first.  Just an impulse.  So we decided to head to the beach Thursday night, stay at a hotel and spend the next day at the beach, then head straight to our next gig.

We went to the closest beach to SP city, Garuja.  We checked in, and headed down to a bar on the beach.  We proceeded to down 5 caipirinhas each and a whole lot of seafood.  At this point, really, anything was possible.  We decided to go swimming in our underwear.  I think at some point I gave Dan a sideways body block in the ocean.  It was hilarious, all the bar staff were watching us from the window (we closed the place) and were laughing their asses off.  We were a hot mess.  We stumbled back to our rooms and some of us had rougher nights than others.

We spent the next day on the beach, the waves were some super gnarly 10 footers, but they were a ways out and the lifeguards wouldn't let me swim out there, tho I tried.  But the water was the perfect temperature, the weather was perfect, super intense sun.  The hangover made it a little difficult, but once I got in the ocean it was all good.  We sat there all day and drank fruity drinks, did some handstands, played some futbol.  It was perfect.  Unfortunately Dan, Jason and Anne got absolutely cripsy fried sunburns.  Jason and Anne especially looked completely cooked.

Funny story.  On the way down there, we were getting pretty low on gas and we kept mentioning it to Sergio, but he kept on saying 'no no we're fine'.  Well, the next day, heading out of Garuja, we basically rode around the block and ran out of gas.  We were in front of this place, Sergio bargains with some guy and he lets him borrow a purple girls bike and a litre bottle of water.  So off goes the tour manager on his purple bike to go find a gas station and fill the water bottle up with Alcool (ehtanol).  Dan went and had a drinking contest with the dude while we waited.  It was pretty hilarious but we made it to a gas station once he got back.

We were starving once we got back into SP so we went out for all you can eat sushi, which was some incredible shit.  I ate more sushi than I ever have in my life I think.

We headed to our gig in Sao Caentano do Sul.  We were pretty ragged from the beach and weren't feeling so hot collectively.  There were 4 bands, and again we were going on last which meant another 4AM start time, which did not sound too promising to us in our state.  When the first band started at 12pm, there might have been 10 people there.  By the time they were done the place was empty, besides the bartender. booker and the bands.  And the booker split soon after.  We all took naps at different locations around the bar or in the van.  We did get to see Gigante Animal, an Amplitude band and friends of Sergio and Gabriella.  They were really cool and had a unique sound that reminded me of peanuts for some reason.  Well, anyway, at 4AM, there was no one there and we felt like shit so we called it a night and said screw it to playing.  Sergio felt pretty bad about it so even though we treid to tell him to chill cuz hes already done so much for us, he promised to make it up to us.

We were supposed to play another gig Saturday night, but Gabby and Serg told us that there was some other parties going on the same night and there was a good chance of a repeat of the previous night, like, no one going to be there.  So we decided to have a going away party at Sergios, and we would play up in his studio with Gigante Animal and Holger.

Durng the day, Sergios whole family came over for a holiday party.  It was fully catered, with a dude making fresh, unbelievably tasty crepes.  We ate our fill and hung out with his family all day, it was cool, had fun discussing politics and culture and whatnot.  Then everyone left and the party started.  It was nuts, there were probably 70-80 people that came to the party.  We crammed all these people into Sergios tiny little 222 studio and played our last gig in Brasil.  We couldn't have scripted it any better.

Gigante Animal played, which was straight flavor, and then Holger played an acoustic set with everyone singing along.  We said our goodbyes to alot of people, then we headed back out to chicoburger for one last cheese bacon and probably my last acai in brasil.  And so it ended.

Like I said, we'll probably post some more stuff once we get back.  This has been one of the most amazing experiences of our lives and we have to give all love and respect to Sergio, Gabby, Eduardo and Amplitude/Tronco for making it happen.  Its been a wild ride.  Brazil is not for beginners.  But it all happened, one way or another.  Sempre tem jeito.

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