Amparanoia

Saturday night I booked tickets for one of my all time favourite bands: Amparanoia from Spain. I 'discovered' them in a tiny club in Madrid in 2001 and ever since I've seen them 4 times if my count is accurate. Last year they won the BBC3's award for best European World Music act, which is quite an achievement. So I expected the show would sell out quickly but only 4 days before the concert there were still lots of tickets available.
Once again I forgot about an quintessential trait of the English: their Anglo-centrism when it comes down to music!

I went with a Spanish friend, Martha, to the Coronet on Elephant & Castlewhich happened to be only 15 minutes walking from my place. Strange, I never noticed a concert hall there before and I pass there all the time...
It proved that this place only reopened very recent and that was clear in their handling of the crowd. They just didn't know what to do with 1) people having tickets, 2) people with pre-booked internet tickets, 3) people who wanted to buy tickets at the venue and 4) people on the guest list. We were of the 2nd category and we were first sent to the queue 1) and 3)(about 50 meters long!), then they created a new queue for 1) and we were sent to that queue as well, after which they separated 1) from 2) again??? In short, it was really confusing and we had to wait a long time to get in.

Luckily the concert started way too late so we saw the magnificent Amparo Sanchez and her great band from the first rows. It was a good concert and steaming party as always, though I was a bit surprised about the guitar player who was introduced as 'special guest', he played ok and didn't make any mistakes or so but sometimes he played things I would not expect at those points...

...I got to talk to him later that night and he told me he was flown in that very day from Spain because the usual Cuban guitar player was refused entry in the UK. Those biased English coppers probably suspected his guitar case...

The second band on the bill that night was Ska Cubano and to be honest I didn't know them so I thought they were the support act but in fact they were top of the bill.



I was not convinced at first: a bunch of guys and a girl who all claimed to be from 'Cuuuuuba' (pronounce cooeeeba for Dutch speakers), dressed up in 3 piece suites from the 40s, white shoes and a big hat... Seemed a bit cheap. And then they started off the first 30sec. already with an exaggerated sax solo and trying to get the public jumping, dancing and singing along. Usually you first have to prove yourself a bit before you get me, and by extension a general critical public, to do such things. But when you go to concerts at the British prices you cannot be too critical anymore, you just make your money worth it and go along in the collective pretence...
But in the end I must say, they actually were pretty good. A lot of show, but certainly based on some sound musical skills. Though I found out afterwards they didn't all fly in from across the atlantic, but are all just living in London... That's the nice thing about a cosmopolitan city.

More pictures follow later