Can Dream Nico Fad, Banned From Three Festivals for Politeness, Be Rude?
On a bright Sunday in Alfama, the fado punk singer is asked what rudeness would sound like. He answers without a word, and with one hand.
It is ten past two on a Sunday and the sun has nowhere to hide in Alfama. The walls are white enough to hurt. Somewhere above us a radio plays a football match nobody is winning.
Dream Nico Fad sits on a step on Rua de São Miguel with his guitarra on his knee, tuning it very quietly, as if the strings might be sleeping. Three festivals have banned him. The reason on all three letters was the same. He apologised between every song, and the crowds began to apologise back.
So I ask him, the way you might ask a friend at 3 a.m. when the phone line is thin and honest. What would rudeness sound like? Take your time.
He takes it. A pigeon walks the length of the step and leaves. He looks at the guitar, then at the street, then at nothing.
Then a woman comes up the hill pulling a tartan shopping trolley, one wheel clicking, headed for the door of Pastelaria Dona Alzira. Nico is on his feet before I see him move. He sets the guitar down on the step like a sleeping cat. He crosses six metres of hot cobbles and holds the door open with his whole arm, the way you hold a curtain for a bride.
She nods. She says obrigada. She goes in, and the trolley wheel clicks after her.
He comes back and sits. He picks up the guitar.
"That," he says, very softly. "That was me trying."
I tell him it sounded like a door. He thinks about this and says he will have to practise.
