Two stocky elderly men sitting slowly strumming their guitars while a young woman sings mournfully with her eyes shut. This is the Fado which is the music that celebrates ‘Portugueseness’ according to Barry Hatton. We sat down to a grilled salmon dinner and watched and listened to four women entertain us in a small family run business on one of ‘those’ streets. Fado means fate and when high hopes are dashed, many will throw up their hands and say: “this is our fate”. But Fado is also about fortitude, about a celebration of life despite the hardships, it’s about faith and resilience
I got a sense of all of this as it became more lively with hand clapping and audience participation. In the background was the family ever present in one way or another in Portuguese life. The audience became more and more involved but the music and singing never became very loud and neither did the audience. This was not Flamenco, this is Fado
