A night out and a tambourine

A couple of nights out and some dancing were our evening objectives in Sao Paulo. We did a bit of digging around online where there are several listings/what's on blogs. For our first night out we found out about a couple of unsigned bands playing in a cultural centre. Off we went, only to find out that it was at the top of a six-storey shopping centre and the main event was, in fact, a fashion show. The bands were ok but the place was too sterile for music, far more interesting was the people watching - an international crowd of trendies and dandies had turned out - and we couldn't help but make the obvious comparison between this fashion set and the people we had encountered on the streets of the centre earlier in the day.

There's only so much time can be spent watching young people in silly clothes walk up and down a catwalk, and that time is not long. So our first night out was over by about 11pm and we were happily in bed doing a crossword before midnight.

The next day, we spotted this exciting poster in a nice little clothes boutique. We listened to the headline band on MySpace who had a bit of a CSS/Ting Tings thing going on, and decided to get our names on the list, as is the done thing in Brazil and Argentina.

The bands were playing at a club near to our hotel, but we had heard that Vila Madalena, a good 40 minutes on the metro away, was the hotspot for bars. We set off in search of them, but failed to find anything more than a quiet, isolated locals' bar where at least the caipirinha was cheap and the people on the next table were playing a guitar and singing traditional songs.

From here we walked for nearly an hour into the centre as the metro had finished for the night, back towards the club, which was much nearer to our hotel. Low and behold, this road was packed with interesting bars and people having fun, all within a 10 minute walk of where we had started out from several hours previously.

Sao Paulo skyline on our walk back into town.

We got to the club to see most of the first band, Monique Maion, and we soon settled into the fun, friendly indie vibe, with a little help from another caipirinha.

As the evening wore on, the club filled up, the caipirinhas hit the spot and we took our place at the front of the dancefloor for the rest of the evening. A band called Copacabana Club, who have had a bit of success recently, were the main act and were really up for it, putting on a good live show of punky, electro-indie pop.

The lead singer, with this fetching chest tatoo and confident stage presence, decided to leave the stage and join the crowd for this song. She also appeared to invite people towards the stage. Maybe it was the rare treat of a good band or possibly just the influence of the caipirinhas, but Simon soon found himself alongside the band with just a couple of other fellow stage invaders.

He jigged about for a while before grabbing a tambourine, perhaps under the illusion that he was now in the band. He did blend in fairly well as he found the beat with his jingly shaker.

It looked as if things could get edgy for a moment, as someone from the crowd hurled a beer can in Simon's direction and yelled something incoherent at him. As it transpired at the end of the night when he came over for a chat, he was just admiring Simon's t-shirt, which he wanted to see the back of. We learnt that pictures on the t-shirt are from the children's storybook, The Little Prince.

The band ended with a cover version of the Ting Tings 'Shut up and let me go', which sounded a lot better than the slightly irritating original, or once again, maybe that was just the caipirinhas talking. A splendid night in Sao Paulo was had and we made our way back to bed by 5am, which didn't seem so great in the morning when we got up groggily at 9 to catch a bus to Rio de Janeiro.