Canecão

The space occupied by Canecão between Venceslau Braz avenue and Lauro Müller street, on the boundary between the neighborhoods of Botafogo, Urca and Copacabana, represents a crucial chapter in the history of Brazilian music, whether for the artists or for the audiences, who watched the most important national and international musicians pass through its stage over 40 years of existence.

Image description: The image is a photograph of a building located in Rio de Janeiro, RJ. In the upper part of the image, we see a green area with trees and some residential buildings. The main building, called "Canecão," is at the center of the photo. It has a white façade with the name "Canecão" written in yellow letters. To the left of the building, there is a large blue panel with the text "EDU LOBO TANTAS MARES 15 e 16 de MAIO." To the right, there is a black panel with an image of a person and white text. The building has an arched metal structure above it. In the foreground, we see a street with cars and people walking.

Canecão was one of Rio's most important entertainment venues. It originally opened as a brewery — hence the name — in 1967, and debuted as a concert venue two years later with Maysa's show, directed by Bibi Ferreira. It witnessed the turning point of MPB, with shows by Chico Buarque, Vinícius de Moraes, Tom Jobim, Elis Regina, and Clara Nunes. It hosted the birth of Brazilian rock in the 1980s. And it lived through one of its most famous episodes in 1985, when a then-unknown Elymar Santos sold his apartment and his car and pooled money among friends to be able to rent the venue for his debut show.

Image description: This is a black-and-white photograph of a public event. On the left, there is a large poster with the name "Canecão" and information about performances. On the right, there is another poster with the name "Flymar Santos". People are gathered in front of the entrance to a venue, possibly a theater or cinema. The spatial arrangement shows the visitors in the foreground, while the poster is behind them.

The concert hall, however, was for many years the stage for a legal dispute between its owners and the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), the owner of the land. In 2010, the courts ruled in favor of the university. The concert hall was closed and briefly reopened from May 17 to October 17, 2010, with Bibi Ferreira's show as its final performance. From that date on, the venue stopped being a concert hall. Its fate is uncertain. Today, Canecão is one of the many ruins of the city of Rio de Janeiro. Part of its memory, however, has been preserved. Before he died, businessman Mário Priolli, founder of Canecão, donated the entire collection he kept to the Instituto Ricardo Cravo Albin.