Radiohead in Brazil

Radiohead have a huge following in Brazil and are playing a number of shows here as part of their tour for In Rainbows, their latest record. One of my English students from here in Natal got a flight down to Rio to see them on the weekend and he was on cloud 9 when he got back. He said it worth every centavo!

I read this report last week which was quite funny. The address for picking up Radiohead tickets was given out wrong resulting in much confusion for desperate fans. Click here for that.

Here’s a report with links to photos and other stuff about their concert in Rio. Click here for that.

Here’s a video of one of their earlier songs – Fake Plastic Trees – with Portuguese subtitles.

Finally, quite a few international artists have been coming to Brazil recently, including Keane and Iron Maiden. Pictures of these and others are here. For videos of them in Portuguese, just search “legendado” with the name of the band on YouTube.

Vagalume gap fill (or how to learn Portuguese through pop songs)

There’s a very cool website called Vagalume in Brazil which has lyrics for thousands of songs, both from Brazil and internationally. But Vagalume excels where other similar sites might fall down… it often includes the music video to watch at the same time AND it has a snazzy function called “Aprenda” which hides a random selection of the lyrics. Your job is to listen to the song and write them back in – then check your answers at the end to see how you did.

English teachers love this website because it provides ready made examples of “gap fill” activities but there’s no reason you couldn’t use it for learning Portuguese. Just pick a Brazilian band or singer (such as Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, Ivete Sangalo or whoever), click “Aprenda”, play the video and try and fill in the missing gaps.

Here’s a link to the top 100 most popular artists. Scroll down, find a Brazilian name and see what you think of the music… http://vagalume.uol.com.br/top_artistas.html

(ps. The site also has some good interviews, games and other resources – all useful for people learning Brazilian Portuguese)

Madonna

Madonna performed to 70,000 people at the Maracana last night. Apparently, it rained for some of the show prompting Madge to reach for an umbrella at one point. Click here for a bunch of the news reports and pictures about it.

Two videos with subtitles of Madonna here. Just search “Madonna legendado” for a whole lot more including some interviews.

R.E.M. in Brazil

R.E.M. have been touring South America, with several shows in Brazil – their first since 2001. Sadly, I wasn’t  able to make it as they’re only playing some 3000kms away in the south of the country. Anyway, here is a good-quality Brazilian-Portuguese-subtitled video of the band performing their hit Everybody Hurts.

Michael Stipe reportedly wrote the chorus to the song Imitation of Life with the line “that sugar cane that tasted sweet” after his visit to Brazil in which he tasted a drink made from sugar cane. The song is very popular in Brazil and here is a subtitled version of the track. The only problem is that the lyrics don’t make a lot of sense in English, let alone in Portuguese, so good luck…

The  press have been covering R.E.M. coming to Brazil. Here is an interview with leadsinger Michael Stipe from Folha Sao Paulo and here is a report from Globo about R.E.M.’s support of Obama (including a subtitled video clip). And here are some photos from their Sao Paulo show. Stipe’s only televison interview came with Globo news and you can watch it here (dubbed).

McFly in Brazil

McFlymania is hitting Brazil this week as the British outfit play their first shows in Brazil, in Rio and Sao Paulo.

Here’s a few links about it to read if this is your thing: 1) a set of photos from their show in Sao Paulo, 2) A report on what’s been going on here. And, why not a couple of subtitled videos of their songs…

And there’s actually quite a lot on YouTube in Portuguese about McFly including several documentaries and interviews with subtitles. Have a look here.