Acústico MTV: Legião Urbana

One of Legião Urbana's greatest musical moments outside of their studio albums (1985-1997) and besides the concerts attended by a whole generation, and a couple of their were released into CD's, the unplugged gets a special place in every Legionário hearts or music enthusiasts since it was one of the very first unplugged experiences launched by MTV Brazil in the early - though it'd take some other years until get a CD release and even re-runs on the channel.

Renato Russo, Dado Villa-Lobos and Marcelo Bonfá some songs from the group's career up until the release of "V", their fifth album and one they were heavily promoting - their very first album in the 1990's. It's a very comprehensive list of song that begins with one song from each album released (1985-1987), moving on to promote a couple of songs from "V" like "Sereníssima", "O Teatro dos Vampiros" and the epic "Metal Contras as Nuvens". Afterwards, comes the surprising English covers of songs by Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, PIL and even Menudos are included in a Portuguese version - "Hoje a Noite Não Tem Luar" was heavily used by radio stations.

Since it was a novelty back then, it's a quite fascinating experience to see and hear it. This review comes in light that I had seen it for the first time after many years listening to the CD and it's basically the same thing - except you get to visualize things and MTV produced the whole event (in a slightly amateur manner). There's almost no editing used except the change between camera shots focusing the group as a whole or with each member individually.

During Menudo cover MTV made some editing yet some mistakes can be spotted with some outtakes intercutting the act (later I found out this was done because of the poor image quality during transfer of the original material years later).

Other key moments that reveal it wasn't all much edited were some moments that shouldn't air at all, and Russo keeps pointing out that it won't be broadcast, like some small talk, some humor - 'Ow, the crisis is bad' complains Russo when the crowd barely raise their hands as a positive nod if they had bought Legião's latest album. There are countless of humored moments in between, which also had during "Serenísssima" performance something that I always thought it was sponteanous from the audience since during the actual track there's a crowd yelling between parts. The "mistake" which interrupts the song performance comes a P. A. echoing a part from the actual song and Renato was caught off guard, laughed and continued.

As said it looks amateurish in a way, the company was just starting business and Legião was one of the few bands that had an appealing material to show plus they were promoting new material so their inclusion was on point and in the best timing possible. But visually looking, if compared to other Unplugged they went on to release and even ressurect some careers, it's a little poor. Dark setting, dark art-direction, the invisible crowd put in half circle to the point they only see the artists back rather than their faces, it's a little weird to see. The unplugged format changed a lot over the years and for the better: better set-designs and lighting; the inclusion of guest musicians, solo artists and even orchestra inclusion (Legião is one of the rare where it was only the band and no one else coming as guests), and the use of drums at its fullest (Bonfá uses brushes instead of drumsticks, and the songs sound way different than the original, for obvious reasons, but other drummers in other similar specials used drumsticks; something we copied from foreign performances).

Also worthy of mention that it's one of the rare specials where the band was at the peak of their career rather than many others where the artist or the group was under the radar and later on got rediscovered by a new generation, or worst case scenario a strange performance is delivered. This one takes many similar specials to a whole new level and it's very pleasant to hear it as well.

Despite the small evident "problems" I got nothing to complain, only words of praise and admiration since they're one of my favorite groups of all time and they delivered a masterful intimate performance, but also created major moments of humor - and that's what got lost in the future unplugged which were entirely devoted to the music rather than those small talks with the audience. And it was incredibly nice to see Marcelo Bonfá easing down some cute smiles in some shots since he always appears as someone very closed-off in some of Legião's videos. Truly special. 10/10 Urbana Legio Omnia Vincit.