It's all about the Fado

 23 Apr 2022

A Lisboa stroll took us through some colorful neighborhoods with amazing graffiti.  Here is the Model doing some imitation...

Of course everywhere we looked we saw blue and white tiles. Some had pictures.

The trolleys of Lisbon made an appearance.

And the world's largest sardine store.  They sell tins of sardines and nothing else.

The Fado

A couple of days ago I said that we saw a Fado performance at dinner and promised to talk about Fado a bit. Fado is like Portugese Soul or Blues music.  It is usually slow and kind of sad but not always.  The singers are the stars but the musicians contribute their share to the performance.

We heard two singers for this show so it was a bit special.  The first performance after the salad course was Filipa Biscaia dressed in modern clothes.  She was followed by another singer dressed in traditional Fado style with a long, black dress and a shawl. Both were very good.  The tunes that they sang were both traditional and more upbeat/happy.   The musicians played a Spanish guitar and a Portuguese guitar; kind of like a mandolin. Both guys were excellent musicians.

After dinner they all sang again. There was even a sing-along. Filipa sang the chorus and we sang the 'Ai, Ai, Ai!' part. I didn't even forget the words.

The food was good also.

Sorry, we would not record the performance. Waving a camera would  have taken away the unique feeling of a Fado session.

Filipa has some pop music on Spotify but I found a link to a Fado session here.  The session takes shown on the link took place in a small restaurant a few years ago, not the classy place we saw her.