Circo Voador

Circo Voador is an iconic music venue under the arches of Lapa in Rio de Janeiro.

Recently, I was fortunate enough to attend a concert there for one of my favourite Australian bands The Cat Empire.

I arrived about half an hour before the band were due to start and lined up to by tickets from the box office. Online, the tickets were quite expensive but at the door I paid half the price by bringing with me a kilo of non perishable food.

Once inside, the setting was incredible. The stage is beautifully set under a white dome roof with a small seated area upstairs and a standing area down below on a gentle incline, very similar to Brixton Academy. Surrounding the stage is an open-air area with a small bar, merchandise store and basic food stall where you can get hamburgers, pizza, fries and other such foods.

There are plenty of plastic tables and chairs to sit at and enjoy the vista of palm trees, bright lights, the beautiful arches and the night sky. I made full use of this area as, typically for Brazil, the band came on about 2 hours after they were due to start, but also typically for Brazil, they then played an incredible 3 hour set!

It really is a music venue unlike any that I have been to and I would so recommend a visit.

A colleague told me that its origins are in the 80s and 90s when it was located in Arpoador and basically you weren’t anyone in Brazilian music until you played a gig there. Today, it continues to host some of the biggest Brazilian artists but also many international bands.

Information on acts playing at Circo Voador can obviously but found on the website link given above but I also use this website generally to see which artists might be playing in Rio – http://www.queremos.com.br/

In a couple of weeks another Australian band, Tame Impala, will play there so I will be visiting Circo Voador again!

More laboratories

As I have mentioned before, doctors in Rio are thorough!

Today I received my results for another series of tests (including blood tests) that I was directed by my GP to undertake.

For these I went to Sergio Franco in Ipanema. Like Labs D’Or, this is a chain that is all over Rio and, also like Labs D’Or, they were really impressive. No English was spoken by the staff but this was not a problem. They were incredibly quick – I think my total waiting time was less than 20 minutes – and they have really convenient operating hours – the branch I went to is open from 6am each day of the week.

The most impressive part of the Sergio Franco experience however, was that you did not need to go back there to get your results. Instead they give you a log in and password before you leave along with instructions on how to use their website to access your results online. I was not only able to view my results this way but also print the PDF file to now take with me to the doctor.