I went out on Friday to a concert – happens so rarely that it’s newsworthy! As part of the Lichfield Festival, there was a Mexican band playing the Lichfield Garrick, so I jumped at the chance to go when invited by a friend – thanks Sharon ;o)
The blurb advertising the award winning Los de Abajo looked interesting (see below)- and the evening proved to be just that!
I’m not sure that the Lichfield Garrick was the ideal venue for such a high energy performance, and I think the band were a bit fazed by the lack of dancing in the audience (well, it’s Lichfield for heavens sake!!) but they gave it their all!
Memorable moments included reference by the vocalist to ‘the horny section’ (he meant the brass section!); the energetic dancing and gyrating of the saxophonist, Daniel Portugal, described by The Independent as ‘tall and punkish with a saturnine beard, … a wild dancing talisman’ and member of the aforementioned ‘horny section’; various members of the band donning wrestling masks and having a fight; and the encore when the entire band left the stage and went walkabout around the theatre, culminating in deafening the front few rows (including me!) with two saxophones, two trombones, two trumpets, two guitars and a wide variety of drumming!
Their music, lyrically, is not really suitable for use in the Primary classroom – it’s very revolutionary and is peppered with colourful language, but it has a good beat and was very different to the pop perception of Latino music. (Check it out by clicking on the CD cover here and then choosing a song!)
If you want to find out more, here are a few sites about them, and one of their songs
http://www.myspace.com/losdeabajoska
http://www.realworldrecords.com/artists/los-de-abajo
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_de_Abajo_(band)
