Moura’s band, unlike fado’s traditional instrumentation based on guitar, Portuguese guitar and voice, has also bass guitar, keyboard and drum-kit. They come to stage and build up Moura’s (2015) opening song ‘Moura encantada’, which plays on words: ‘Um dia alguém perguntou-me / Se a moura que há no meu nome / É essa moura encantada’ (meaning ‘One day someone asked me / If the Moorish [=Moura] that is in my name / It is that enchanted Moorish’).
Only, as she comes to stage dressed in a long, black glittering gown those enchanted are the members of the audience and they will be even more so throughout the show. Moura is incredibly talented and sensual. She moves slowly at times and communicates her feeling through the slightest gestures. And she sings with passion, completely involved in each song. And when she talks she is open. She keeps close to her audience and talks with them in English and Portuguese.
Some may regret what seems quite clear since Desfado (2012): for now Moura has majorly moved away from a typical guitar-based instrumentation. Yet, despite being one of the finest fado singers ever, she never represented traditional fado. Like other young musicians, in Portugal and the world, Moura is experimental and she has also a clear agenda: to make fado danceable again, as it was in the 19th century.
Perhaps that’s one of the reasons why in London she presented her new album almost entirely, with few but important exceptions such as ‘Lilac Wine’ and ‘Tens os olhos de Deus’. Instead, the most danceable ‘Fado dançado’, ‘Dia de Folga’ and ‘O meu amor foi para o Brasil brought the most upbeat mood to a show that otherwise always kept intimate.
In the second half she come to stage dressed in a long, white glittering gown. When she announced whe’d sing one of the songs she recorded with The Rolling Stone Project one of the Portuguese fellows from the audience asked for ‘Brown sugar’. Ana nicely responded she wasn’t thinking of that but of Keith Richards’ ‘No Expectations’ and asked if that was ok with him. Once the show had finished, and before leaving the stage she told the public Mick Jagger had been was quietly in the audience and had just left. Presumably he sat near Jose Mourinho, another quiet member. She thanked both of them profusely for their presence.
She will be back to London in September. She will play at the Barbican on the 26th September (https://www.barbican.org.uk/music/event-detail.asp?ID=19469).
