Capacity: 55,000

Concert starts: 9:00pm (To be confirmed)

Address of venue: Av. Francisco Matarazzo, 1705 - Água Branca, São Paulo - SP, 05001-200, Brazil. MAP

Website: www.allianzparque.com.br

COMMENTS

With the addition of this date to the announced schedule, David's 2015 tour of South America begins here, forming the first of a pair of shows in the venue. Allianz Parque, also known as Palestra Itália Arena, is a brand new (opened in 2014) multipurpose stadium in São Paulo, Brazil, built to receive shows, concerts, corporate events and especially football matches of Sociedade Esportiva Palmeiras, the site owner.

Tickets for the concert go on sale on Wednesday, September 23rd through www.ingressorapido.com.br although please be aware that demand will be incredibly high so you might need to be patient and keep retrying.

We also understand that there may be a limited number of VIP packages available for this venue.

Our thanks to Terje Aukland for sending in a picture of his ticket - click the thumbnail to the right.

A few of the media teams at the press conference recorded it, and the following footage enables you to see and hear what was discussed:

With thanks to Charles Portilho we have a selection of shots taken the day before the show - Thursday, December 10th - which include the press conference and the inside of the stadium prior to the rehearsal which took place on the Thursday.

WARNING - SPOILERS AHEAD!

Do not read on if you don't want surprises to be spoilt, regarding what the band played!

Well, if the stadium in São Paulo had a roof, it would have been raised by the 40,000 crowd last night from reports we are hearing. The band seemed on top form, and the audience too, with cheering, chanting ("Ole, Ole, Ole, Gilmour! Gilmour!") and singing - in particular on Comfortably Numb, where almost every voice joined in, making for an apparently incredible experience.

One minor technical glitch didn't dampen the spirits - Guy Pratt's bass guitar went down at the beginning of Money (not something that you can carry on regardless without as it is ALL about the bass at the start!). The crowd were very understanding and supportive though, the song was stopped and a few minutes elapsed before starting again. Then it went again after 15 seconds, and finally after the third attempt everything was fine.

As expected, Brazilian Joao Mello's sax solo was rapturously received, and he also got the biggest cheer of the night during the band introductions.

The promoters, Mercury Concerts, have taken a number of great pictures of the event, which can be seen in a photo gallery on their Facebook page, which also has a number of short videos they have shot, either during the concert, or before, as the fans enter. Here's one of the particularly special moments that they managed to capture on picture during the show:

We'd love to know in more detail how the concert went. Did you go? Let us know what YOU thought!

CONCERT PICTURE by BD CONTRIBUTOR, JEFF LOBATO MORAES
Jeff was lucky enough to be at the concert, and sent in this great picture taken during Run Like Hell...click the thumbnail to see the picture in more detail.

CONCERT REVIEW by BD CONTRIBUTOR, TERJE AUKLAND
What an amazing two nights it has been in Sao Paulo. We arrive at the Allianz Parque (football stadium for the Palmeiras football team) hours before the gates opened, the first night. It was quite fascinating watching the street life of the Brazilians outside. You might think that a temperature like +31 degrees celsius and a burning sun should calm the waiting Gilmour fans? Not at all. And a huge amount of retailers, were selling a variety of David Gilmour items: t-shirts with a lot of different designs, scarves, wristbands, headbands, banners, flags and so on. However everything was of course fake, but some items seem to be of good quality.

At five o'clock, for many the Pearl Gates, were opened. And with such good weather and nice people to talk with the hours ran fast. And for every half an hour the crowd were singing: "Ole, Ole, Ole, David". I think some 25,000 participated in that kind of choir every time. And the wave, of course...

The infrastructure of the stadium was very impressive. Toilets, shops and entrances were so many and so close to wherever you sat or stood, that there was no queuing problems.

The 'waiting-music' reminds me of Roger Waters, because David played a lot of Bob Dylan. So did Roger.

At 9:10pm the time had come. All lights were switched off, and the stadium was dark for some seconds. Then we heard the intro to 5A.M., before David hit the very first note. Beautiful. And then the crowd exploded. And an ocean of mobile phones -tens of thousands - lights all around the stadium, in the dark, trying to catch this very first song. Which was to happen several times, over and over again. The audience had waited for David for years to play in South America, and suddenly: here he was! It seems that they did need to hear this wonderful music played by one of the world's best guitarists.

However, there was some technical problems the first night. Especially trying to start the sound intro for Money seems difficult. They had to try several times, and David was a kind of 'toast master' speaking to the audience when the technicians work very hard to figure it out.

Later on, when David presented his band, it was the right occasion to introduce the Brazilian sax player Joao de Macedo Mello, as the very first person. And he got huge ovations from his compatriots. He is from Curitiba, where gig number three takes place.

This time there was a lot more videos of the band members during the concert. Very nice. This was may be obvious since it is a very huge arena. Later on some technical problems popped up again, but soon after the show went on. And with the two(three) final encore songs: Time/Breathe and Comfortably Numb the audience exploded for the last time. An incredible end of the concert.

Conclusion: A great concert, but some few steps up to the outstanding level.

YOUR HELP NEEDED! We want to cover David's concerts the best we can, to share the experience with everyone, especially those who won't be able to attend the shows. We'd love to see ANY pictures, tickets scans, reviews, newspaper reports, and anything else you come across for this show - we look forward to hearing from you!