Niedziela 10 Lut 2008, 4:50
Sat 9 Feb – Rodrigo y Gabriela
Look, Rodrigo y Gabriela just fuckin' rock. I will belabor this further, but that's really all you need to know, and if you're in San Diego, Tucson, Melbourne, Sydney, or Brisbane, buy a ticket now and go see them on their current tour. If you're in Denver, Austin, or Tokyo, good luck finding a scalped ticket.
Kim and i picked up my stepson Dave, and had dinner near his place at Yama Sushi (excellent prices, and they had mirugai sashimi… mmm, mirugai). Afterwards, we headed to the show. The openers were two random dudes, one on electric guitar, the other on harmonica, xylophone, and saw. They were mediocre at best; not offensive, but clearly not very good musicians. Afterwards, the sound guys played a Shakti track that was really good; it wasn't very long, so i'm guessing it was "Lotus Feet". Right before R&G came out, they played Tool's "The Pot", which really warmed the crowd up; i've never seen intermission music used so effectively before.
Set list:
* Improv (included a couple of measures from "For Whom the Bell Tolls")
* Satori
* Ixtapa/One
* Orion/Foc (Gabriela 'drum' solo)
* Improv (included a couple of measures from "Smoke on the Water")
* Juan Loco
* More Than Words (just kidding, says Rodrigo)
* Wish You Were Here (audience singalong)
* Vikingman
* Percussion improv (Gabriela alone)
* (Jimi Hendrix tune?)/Seven Nation Army/Master of Puppets (Rodrigo alone)
* Stairway to Heaven
* Tamacun
Encore
As the lights came up, the sound guys closed out the crowd with AC/DC's "For Those About to Rock". Solid work.
They're intensely engaging, stopping songs in the middle to incite applause and ripping right along after, urging clapping and yelling, and just displaying general showmanship. They swear a lot. They have a lot of fun on stage and it is quite contagious. My only regret was that i wished that they'd played "Take Five".