Bonde do Role
DJ Anna Lunoe
Smirnoff Nightlife Exchange Project
The Metro, Sydney
Saturday 27th November 2010

by Jonno Seidler

Entering the redecorated back foyer of The Metro Theatre, past a line of carnivale-esque models for hire, all skimpy underwear and feathered headdresses, we’re handed our first drink before we’ve even had a chance to breathe. My plus one grins and says ‘Mate, I feel sorry for Brazil,’ and I’m inclined to agree with him. It seems our Nightlife Exchange partners from across the Pacific are getting the raw end of the deal, especially given that in the first hour alone, we’ve been gratuitously exposed to more amazing derrières than in the Rio De Janeiro music video for Snoop Dogg’s ‘Beautiful’, eaten deep fried banana (better than it sounds) and relieved the continuous stream of beautiful waitresses of no less than five Caipirinha cocktails. 

Thumbing through more drink cards than we know what to do with and sampling at least four different kinds of meat, we wonder what those poor suckers in Sao Paulo, who are experiencing the Australian version of Nightlife Exchange (the clue is in the title), are making do with? Ksubi jeans? Vegemite on toast? Perhaps a whole lot of muscle junkies with Southern Cross tatts and a 12am lockout to boot. Whatever the case, Smirnoff have pulled out all stops to ensure that Sydney’s favourite rock’n’roll den looks sufficiently like a Brazilian beach party. There’s something for everyone; the aforementioned go-go dancers for the boys, buff, shirtless drum-beating Capoiera performers for the girls and enough vodka to keep a Russian army in high spirits for a week.  Given that we’re still in VIP hour and the riff-raff haven’t even descended yet, things are going well, even for Ruby Rose, who gets up to thank someone whose last name she admits can’t pronounce and the photographers, who outnumber both staff and patrons. 

And then shit gets weird. The Brazilian warm up party band, armed with a samba drummer and two singers, take to the stage and instead of giving us some local Brazilian flavour, proceed to play a whole lot of cringe worthy Western songs, including Travie McCoy’s ‘Billionaire’ and Train’s ‘Hey Soul Sister’. By the time they hit a token James Brown cover, I am almost certain that my bar mitzvah has caught up with me a decade later, and begin to feel paranoid that my Mum is going to catch me drinking underage. Thankfully before that can happen, the public are let in, and with them comes the indomitable and utterly gorgeous DJ Anna Lunoe, which means good music can’t be far away. Noticeably far away, however, is Dan Single, who apparently forgot that being Australia’s ambassador meant he had to be at this flagship event rather than in L.A. Or was fired outright for being useless, depending on who you ask tonight. Or maybe he’s just taking over all our excess overpriced denim to Sao Paulo,

Thanks to our circulation-destroying wristbands, we spend the rest of the night alternating between the upstairs VIP area and the dancefloor, which Lunoe is completely annihilating with a suitably tropical mix of Baile Funk, Bossa Nova on steroids and Various Other Tracks Produced By Diplo. It is at this point that we realise that every fourth drink card is actually a blue ‘Have A Water’ voucher, and while feeling completely cheated, it’s acknowledged that staggering what has already become a small armada of vodka-based delights might not be such a stupid idea. It’s definitely less stupid than my plus one choosing to have the Smirnoff logo inked on his forearm by a spray tattoo artist, given that it won’t come off for at least a week and he works as a medical intern in a rehab centre. Pondering this irony, and whether we should have a mango or guava-vodka combination for drink number gazillion, we weave between ferns, fake feathers and other local adornments that could just as easily belong on the set of The Birdcage while the big ticket event, Bonde do Role, grace the main stage.

The pun is completely warranted; it’s been a long time between drinks for this outfit. They’ve lost a singer, recruited two more via a reality TV competition and been off the scene for a while, so it’s heartening to see that they’re still absolutely insane. There’s something innately sexy about hearing Brazilian women rap, especially when clad in what appears to be wedding dresses, and their dramatic foil, Pedro, is wearing a cape like Batman. Though it’s entirely impossible to make out a word they’re saying, even if we spoke Portuguese, the madcap quartet add a real authenticity to the night which until that point was only partially realised. The bar mitzvah is gone, the carnivale is here and now that the most people have reached their optimum level of inebriation, The Metro explodes into the kind of loose party you always watch on video the day after and mutter ‘Damn, I wish I was there.’ Unfortunately the band lose steam after exhausting their biggest hits early in the set, but thanks to tonight’s sponsors, most people are too, er… happy, to notice.

A great concept that was well executed and far more legitimate than most booze bonanzas, Smirnoff’s Nightlife Exchange ticks pretty much all the right boxes. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to Have A Water ™. 

Jonno Seidler