Two years ago I heard about these two classical guitarist, Rodrigo and Gabriela, who combined classical guitar, flamenco style playing, and a metal undertone to all their songs. They come from a metal background in Mexico and decided to take their talents to the classical style. Rodrigo is the lead man and generally plays all of the melodies and solos, but it is Gabriela who generally steals the show. She plays the rhythm, but she uses her whole hand not just to play the chords, but also for hitting the guitar to create this unique rhythm and sound unlike anything I have heard before. Last year, I was looking at shows playing at the 930 Club and I saw that they were playing, so I had to go.
The set up for the show was incredible, there were four different cameras placed on them and they were being projected behind them. There were two on the necks of both guitars, looking from the head down to the sound hole. The other two were placed right around the sound hole, following the strumming hands of Rodrigo and Gabriela. There was also a crazy light show that they had, which was being cued by their playing. When there was a downbeat or hit on the guitar, there would be a flash of light and generally there was a different color for each hit. So if you didn't like their music, there was one heck of a visual performance.
The actual show was great and they played a whole variety of their songs. They tried to get a lot of audience participation, like when they played "Wish You Were Here" they got everyone in the audience to sing the lyrics while they played. They also did the same with "Stairway to Heaven", which includes an unbelievable solo by Rodrigo (honestly one of the best covers of that song I have ever heard). Also, during one of their signature songs "Diablo Rojo", they got different sections of the audience to clap out different rhythms, so when we put them all together it gave a nice beat behind their song. The best part of the whole concert was when both Rodrigo and Gabriela had their time to shine and basically ripped for about ten minutes each. The other would just walk off stage while the one playing tore their guitar to shreds.
Rodrigo and Gabriela are also really funny because they both cannot speak English that well, seeing as it is their second language, and they swear like no ones business. So try and picture someone struggling with english, dropping f bombs through an entire 2 hour performance: funny as hell!
John Geraghty
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