Counter-cultural icons for a whole nation, Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil were two of the major figures in the Tropicalismo movement that swept Brazilian cultura in the late ’60s. On the 1968 album ‘Tropicália’, Veloso and Gil, along with artists such as Os Mutantes and Tom Zé, took eclectic influences (psychedelic rock, funk, samba-jazz, pop, avant-garde music and left-wing politics) and turned them into something entirely new.
The next year, Gil and Veloso were both arrested, imprisoned and exiled from Brazil. They lived and worked in London for the next three years, and now – over four decades later – will be on stage together in their home-from-home at this collaborative concert. It’s a potent reminder that the radical culture of the ’60s wasn’t confined to Europe and the US, and an incredibly rare opportunity to see two masters at work almost half a century since they first collaborated.