Search - Rita Lee :: Mtv Ao Vivo

Still Going Strong

J. N. Valente | Evora, Portugal | 02/23/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

"It's always a pleasure to have another Rita Lee record. A live one is even more of a rarity!

She's obviously in great rock'n rollin' form for her 56 years (when this performance was given) - but she is delightfully more than that. The mischievous psychadelic rock chick is still there and shows it in covers of "I Wanna Be Sedated" and her very own "Ando Jururu" now a quarter of a century old. The new version to Caetano's Mutantes' hit "Panis Et Circensis" is not entirely to my taste, but that has more to do with the sheer brillance of the 1968(I think) original.

"Saúde" is powerfully re-energized and in "Caso Sério" the connection with the audience (never absent) becomes almost song.

Even one of the few new ^^ songs "Meio-Fio" is Rita Lee at her best, lyrics and all. Be sure to take in the nuanced bossa nova version of "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds" and the smash hit "Amor e Sexo". Could it happen that such a cheeky-literary song would be so successfull anywhere outside Brasil? (Yes, it's with an'S')

Towards the very end "Tudo Vira Bosta" (something like "Everything turns out to be crap") reassures us that her arrows are still aimed at the rotten core of society and life.

No complainin' here."