Brazilian music icons Caetano, Gil back on tour at 72

Five decades after galvanizing the Brazilian music scene with the "Tropicalia" movement, Gilberto Gil and Caetano Veloso are going back on tour, older and wiser but still border-blurring troubadours.

Gil, a politically engaged musical ambassador who once served as Brazil's culture minister, and Veloso, a wispy, gender-bending poet with a sublimely mellow voice, have been friends and collaborators since 1963.

Caetano and Gil, as they are popularly known, shook the foundations of Brazilian music in the 1960s with Tropicalia, which blended the South American nation's samba and bossa nova sounds with rock-and-roll beats, electric guitars and psychedelic experimentalism.

The movement alienated both folk music purists, who booed performances, and the military regime in power at the time, which, fearing they were a subversive influence, jailed the pair in 1969 then forced them into exile in London.

But while Tropicalia was short-lived, its ideal of "cultural cannibalism" -- devouring influences from around the world and spitting them back out in a uniquely Brazilian identity -- had a deep impact.

Now both 72 years old, the Grammy-winning singer-songwriters are taking their partnership on the road for the first time since 1994 with a tour called "Two Friends -- One Century of Music."

They will play 18 concerts across Europe and in Israel from June 25 to August 2.

They have come a long way since launching their careers at the height of the "sex, drugs and rock-and-roll" era.

Growing old has its benefits, they told AFP in a joint interview in which they batted ideas back and forth, often completing each other's thoughts.

"I miss youth and being young. Being young is an immediate advantage, it's the joy of a youthful body," said Veloso.

"Which an old guy doesn't have anymore!" said Gil, setting both of them laughing.

"But I'm a person, and people go through childhood, adolescence, maturity and old age. And I feel intense curiosity about it all," said Veloso, looking professorial in wire-rimmed glasses and close-cropped silver hair.

"Growing old has given me the chance to stop moving through life in terms of expectations and desires, things related to the future, to the horizon. Now I'm at peace right where I am," said Gil, who has for his part shed his long-time dreadlocks as his hair has receded and whitened.

- Sex and stage fright -

Gil and Veloso returned to Brazil from exile in 1972 and, each in his own way, set the soundtrack to the nation's transformation from a military dictatorship to a boisterous democracy, as they themselves went from outlaws to icons.

Gil even became culture minister when the leftist Workers' Party (PT) swept to power for the first time in 2003, underlining the changes Brazil had undergone.

He stepped down in 2008, saying it had grown too difficult to balance his dual careers as politician and musician.

"Music is easy," he told AFP. "You just have to want it and it happens. It's the other things that are difficult."

The two also spoke about their long friendship, saying that despite their shared experiences they are not so alike.

Asked about his favorite things in life, Veloso replied: "Sex, conversation and singing."

"I like those things, too, but I'd say that for me, lying down to go to sleep is the best thing of all," said Gil.

"And to me, that's pure hell!" said Veloso.

"We're really very different," said Gil. "He's a Leo and I'm a Cancer. Bossa nova brought us together."

That drew laughter from Veloso.

"I don't believe in astrology. I think we're more different than alike," he said. "But we are very united by life and by music."

Gil also confessed that even after five decades, he still gets nervous before going on stage.

"My hands get cold, sometimes my heart even races," he said. "But it's easier with him at my side. Of all the musicians out there, the one I feel most at peace with on stage is Caetano."

The tour schedule, which includes a stop in London on July 1, is at www.gilbertogil.com.br.
Source: AFP