Rock in Rio is expected to bring more than a half-million fans — as well as elite acts like Bruce Springsteen, Alicia Keys, Metallica, Beyonce and Justin Timberlake — to Brazil’s iconic cultural capital. This year, the annual mega-festival, which has expanded to Madrid, Lisbon and, starting next year, Buenos Aires, will take place on two extended weekends in Cidade do Rock (that’s “City of Rock”), the massive venue built for Rock in Rio’s inaugural edition in 1985. For visitors and the city itself, the festival will be the perfect warm-up for the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Summer Olympics. “Rio has always been a magic city, but getting ready to [host] major international events is having a huge positive impact,” says Marcelo Castello Branco, former chairman of South and Central America for EMI Music, who now heads his own Rio-based music content and branding company, MCB. “There is a visible air of change everywhere, and music is a key part of it.” For festival performers, Rio’s fabled cosmopolitan culture and urban beaches could be reason enough for flying down to play the sold-out event. “Rio is one of the most charismatic, energetic, seductive, controversial places in the whole world,” says Italian singer/rapper Jovanotti, who’ll perform Sept. 21 on a bill featuring Springsteen and John Mayer, among others-his first time onstage in Rio. “[The city] has created one of the most influential and relevant cultural and musical heritages of the last century. I want to blend my rhymes with Brazilian beats and see what happens.”
STAY The Windsor Barra and Sheraton Barra are closer to the Rock in Rio site, but Rio’s rock-star hotel is the Copacabana Palace, off the iconic beach it’s named after. “It’s still the glamorous art-deco landmark overlooking the most famous beach in the world,” Castello Branco says. “It defines luxury in Rio.” Fasano, the Philippe Starck-designed hot spot on that other landmark stretch of sand, Ipanema, has hosted Madonna and Beyonce. Hotel Santa Teresa, located in the historic hood of the same name, is a showcase of high-end tropical design in a former coffee plantation mansion, with lushly landscaped grounds. “It’s modern and flawless,” says New York-based “Red Hot & Rio” producer Beco Dranoff, who’s working on a Brazilian music series for Canal Brasil. For those on a more modest budget, Dranoff, who also oversees Brazilian business for event company Empire Entertainment, says the “large, old-school rooms” at the seafront Hotel Ouro Verde are a good bet.
EAT For a business lunch with a view, Marcelo Soares, president of Som Livre, Brazil’s leading indie label, hits Lagoon, perched on a terrace on Rodrigo de Freitas Lake. “If the lunch runs a little late, extend it to happy hour at Miranda, a venue at the same complex with some of the best shows in town,” he says. Castello Branco directs foodies to Dias Ferreira Street in the upscale Leblon neighborhood, a strip of great restaurants and “places to see and be seen.” He also likes Casa da Feijoada in Ipanema, named after the traditional Brazilian black bean dish, the restaurant’s specialty. The classic waterfront Bar Urca is in “a super-cool area of Rio, right under Sugar Loaf mountain,” Dranoff says. “Great food and amazing caipirinhas.” For “some of the best fish and seafood in Rio,” he heads to local favorite Shirley.
If you’re sticking around for both weekends or the festical, don’t fret: Rio buzzes with live music all week long — especially when it comes to samba. Head to the Andarai neighborhood, one of the genre’s traditional hubs, and check out Renascença, which Geraldinho Magalhaes, who produces shows and manages artists through his company Diversão E Arte, calls “samba’s Apollo Theatre.” It’s home to Samba do Trabalhador, “a magical party that happens Mondays from 4:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.,” he says. “The name of the event means ‘working-man samba.’ Nobody works on Mondays-let’s party on!” Dranoff likes watching samba drummers rehearsing for Carnival from the sliding roof at Mangueira Samba School. If samba isn’t your thing, head to Circo Voador, in the bohemian Lapa neighborhood, a rock landmark since the ’80s. Whenever Orchard VP of international Erol Cichowski is in town, he checks out forro, a regional country music, at the Feira de Sao Cristovao, in Zona Norte, where he’s usually the only foreigner. “You can head there in the early evening on a Friday and basically stay all weekend drinking, eating and dancing.”