Caetano Veloso

Caetano Veloso (born 1942 in Santo Amaro, Bahia) is, with Gilberto Gil, one of the fathers of Tropicália and one of the major voices of Brazilian popular music. A poet, singer and composer, he has crossed six decades of song, from exile in London under the dictatorship to the great stages of the world, Montreux among them.

Caetano Veloso in Montreux

1983: the first visit

Caetano Veloso discovered Montreux well before his duo with Gil. On 9 July 1983, he took the stage of the Casino de Montreux, about ten years after his return from the London exile imposed by the Brazilian dictatorship. Surrounded by his musicians, among them guitarist Perinho Santana and the young drummer Vinícius Cantuária, he ran through fifteen songs, from “Terra” to “Odara” and “Você não entende nada”, and set his Bahian voice on the shores of Lake Geneva for the first time.

A father of Tropicália with Gilberto Gil, Caetano had upended Brazilian music in the late 1960s by blending samba, rock and poetry. Montreux would make him a faithful guest: he returned to the Casino in 1989 and 1990, then to the Auditorium Stravinski in 1993 and 2002, before the 2015 reunion with Gil. Six concerts in all, from the pioneers’ Casino to today’s great stage.

Dois Amigos: a century of music

On 15 July 2015, Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil met again at the Auditorium Stravinski for a stop on their “Dois Amigos, um século de música” tour, celebrating fifty years of friendship and song.

Just two voices and two guitars for twenty-seven songs, and yet all of Tropicália: “Tropicália”, “Sampa”, “Terra”, “Toda Menina Baiana”, “Filhos de Gandhi” or “Domingo no Parque”. The press hailed a “pure and poignant”, “historic” evening: the intimacy of two men who reinvented Brazilian music, set down on the Montreux stage.