Carlinhos Brown is a phenomenon. Since the 1996 release of the highly acclaimed "Alfagamabetizado," he has been a prominent figure on the world music scene and compared to everyone from Prince, for his intriguing mix of musical styles, to Bob Marley, for his charismatic stage presence. At his show Aug. 23 at Shibuya AX, Brown lived up to the hype.

Carlinhos Brown

Dressed in long, flowing garments, he had a large crowd of Brazilian music lovers not only doing the standard audience-participation routine -- clapping, dancing and joining in on the chorus -- but also whistling, humming, playing soccer and singing "buggla-buggla-buggla-buggla-boo-ba-ba" with wild abandon. Brown's personal appeal and his band's crisp musicianship drew the audience right into the music. He played us like, well, like one big drum.

That hardly seemed necessary as the band already had nine percussionists, including Brown when he wasn't singing, and the crowd's participation, of course. When the crowd's clapping and stamping wasn't enough on several numbers, even the guitar, bass, sax and keyboard players put down their instruments and picked up spare drums, timbales and congas to add even more layers to the rhythms.

The two-hour show started off with upbeat selections from "Alfagamabetizado" and his latest (and excellent) release, "Bahia do Mundo." At every turn, Brown's band knew just where he was going and delivered tight, funky backing in the best tradition of their hometown, Salvador de Bahia, the musical capital of the very musical Bahia state in northeastern Brazil. Particularly appealing were numbers such as "A Namorada" and "Pandeiro-deiro." Their fast tempos and bouncing rhythms were designed for street-party dancing and large crowd singalongs. The result was perpetual carnival motion, on stage and off. These songs, like Brown's recordings, are made from an ebullient blend of diverse elements: samba drumming, reggae lilts, salsa horns, metal guitar riffs, American funk and the smooth melodies of bossa nova and tropicalismo.

To avoid a massive cardiac arrest, Brown slowed down the tempo for three songs. After delivering a passionate appeal for world peace, he let his band take a breather and picked up a guitar to accompany himself on these lovely self-penned songs (one of which had been written that morning). Brown's sincere voice floated magically over his softly plucked acoustic chords; his melodies were composed of few notes, but all the right ones.

These solos showed that, despite playing large auditoriums, Brown still believes in the power of delicately simple music to create a profound human experience. Though working toward this kind of earnest intimacy with the audience seems almost naive in this age of worldwide music videos, technical wizardry and the progressive global commercialization of the music industry, Brown's strength comes from keeping his music deeply rooted in human essentials.

After the calm, though, the band was itching to get back on stage, and they kicked into high-funk mode again. They played several tunes relying on heavier electric guitar riffs, and Brown became even more frantic than before, racing from one end of the stage to the other and wildly shifting from vocals to percussion and back again. The energy level was still high, but the band lost the confident direction of the beginning of the show.

The last few numbers, unfortunately, all sounded much the same. The percussion improvisations stretched on for too long, with too little variation. This is odd when you consider that Brown has a huge repertory of songs, recorded by many of the top Brazilian stars, such as Gilberto Gil, Daniela Mercury, Marisa Monte and Gal Costa. Pity we didn't hear more of them. Also, the intriguing mix of musical textures heard on Brown's CDs failed to come out at the concert's tail-end. The goodwill and intense energy of the first two-thirds of the show had, surprisingly, diminished.

Brown has the potential to become a genuine world music superstar. Moments of his show were reminiscent of the deeply spiritual performances of African singers Salif Keita and Youssou N'Dour. In Brazil, as in Africa, music is still taken seriously, as something more powerful than just another consumer entertainment option, so it was especially discouraging that many songs toward the end were also marred by unneeded staginess.

These small points didn't stop the crowd from demanding three encores, though. And, somehow, the style of applause had evolved from the simplistic, four-beat used at the beginning of the show to a more Brazilian rhythm. Brown had made us feel, after all, part of the band; we had learned a new way of clapping and a new reason to.