Through a set of amazing circumstances, I was asked to play keyboards for Drake Bell’s Brazilian tour… coinciding with my birthday. I stopped celebrating birthdays a few years ago, but beachfront Rio De Janeiro is good enough reason to acknowledge this year.
After a week of rehearsals, a van picked us up in Burbank on Monday morning and drove us to LAX. All of of us checked in at the self-service kiosks before Drake showed up. When he got there, American Airlines decided they couldn’t accept his passport because of it’s dog teeth marks despite the fact that the Brazilian gov’t had already approved the exact same passport and issued a work visa. After some tense wrangling with higher-ups, it became apparent that AA wasn’t going to budge and therefore, our whole trip may be effed. About 40 minutes before our flight was scheduled to take off, management made the decision that the band should go to Miami, where we were laidover, and await further instructions, which may be “Go Back Home”.
After a 5 hour flight, we landed in Miami. I looked to the back of the plane and saw Daniel, our guitar player, give me a thumbs up. According to Drake’s Twitter, he was Brazil-bound. We received the official word and boarded the plane to Rio De Janeiro at the very last second. It was a 9 hour flight that included 2 shitty meals and a crappy Queen Latifah movie. We landed at 9am local time and I was somehow a year older than when we took off. Once we grabbed our bags, we met our security detail - 2 Americans, Rich and Dan from Baltimore, and one jacked Brazilian named Tulio (he intro’d himself as ‘Julio, with a T’).
We took an airport shuttle to our beachfront hotel and received our security briefing. It was a little creepy, warning us not to go out at night but if we did, go in a group, take a cab with a meter and ask the concierge where to go before leaving. Instead of going out, I bellied up to the bar and started drinking Caipirinhas - an amazing Brazilian drink similar to a Mojito but better. Our hotel staff is SUPER nice, but the hotel itself is a little eh. Weak wifi and a weird sneeze smell kinda suck but whatever. It took me 5 tries to figure out which button on the elevator meant “Lobby” (“T”) and I had to call the front desk twice to figure out how to keep the energy efficient lights on in my room. And apparently, I stick out as an American because one hotel guest asked me as the departing elevator door closed “Americano?” and when I said “Yes.”, I heard him laugh from behind closed doors a 1/4 of a floor above me.
After we all exchanged currency, we met in the lobby at 3pm and with security, took a trip to the massive Jesus statue that sits atop Mount Corcovado (awesome pic coming soon…). After that, it was back to the hotel and off to dinner, where we PIGGED OUT and the crew got me a prank birthday cake that was made of foam.
We returned to the hotel and a few of us went around the corner to some local bars. After some more Caipirinhas, Johnnie Walker Black Label and some Brahma (Brazilian beer) we came back to the hotel to crash. All in all, an amazing birthday with some new friends.
I’ve quickly figured out that my 8th grade level Spanish isn’t going to cut it here. I THOUGHT possibly Portuguese would be similar enough, but it isn’t. I learned “Obrigado” (“Thank You”) and have been sure to say it as much as possible.
Tomorrow, we have a 3pm rehearsal for the Brazilian Nickelodeon Kid’s Choice Awards and then another night off in Rio. I suspect craziness to ensue but we’ll see… Pics and more updates soon.
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