Cara de Aladino

João Berhan - Cara de Aladino (na Guilherme Cossoul) from João Berhan on Vimeo.

"João Berhan is a portuguese artist and singer who I have encountered by chance while visiting that everlasting mistery, locked in the remnants of a time and place akin to urban tales of modern magic and fascination, called the city of Lisbon. It was, as everything seems to be in lisbon, an encounter purely by chance. I was to meet a portuguese friend of mine for a trip to Alfama (I did get to go to Alfama - more on that later) but,alas, he was (in tipical portuguese fashion, one might say) irredemably late. Me and my other american friend were bored - and then lost. The kids were swarming the streets at night, streets and kids that couldn't possibly exist, you'd feel, anywhere else in the world, and suddenly with an imperial (beer) in hand, we were chilling and having a good time. So yeah, good times ensued, those good times that make for a great night and creep on you, unassumed. And maybe we were a little but drunk, and maybe we walked a bit and felt lost, but suddenly there was just this door with people at the entrance and there was clearly something going on, and we just entered too, and we were inside, and it was this little charming tipycal lisbon place we found ourselves in, and this kid was playing, this João Berhan. It was a concert; and what a great moment it was, soft, cool, surrounded by young kids (well, young adults really) just having a great, mellow time singing to this precious simple songs. And well, we did not find my friend that night, and we ended up in our hotel later (much later) that night thinking what the hell had just happened - people told me lisbon has a way of leaving you like that. But that kid's voice, and his soft songs, the laughter and genuine happiness people were feeling in that hot, weird little room, man - that was one of the polaorids of Lisbon I have kept dearly in my mind."

Marcel Hungorn

Tirado daqui.