Concert Review: Rodrigo y Gabriela

On a pure spur-of-the-moment decision, I decided to make my way up to the Greek Theatre at Berkeley on my birthday for Rodrigo y Gabriela's first concert ever in the Bay Area. And I am so glad I decided to go. It has been two days since the concert and I'm still on a bit of a high from the performance. The energy given off by this duo is incredible! Their journey to fame is one worth retelling. They first met in Mexico when they played in the same thrash metal band called Tierra Ácida. Frustrated at the limited scope of the music scene in Mexico, they completely uprooted themselves and moved to Dublin, Ireland, a city with a reputation for being extremely welcoming to aspiring musicians. There, they discovered and refined their sound by playing various live gigs at pubs and busking on Grafton Street and Temple Bar, one of the principal shopping streets and liveliest nightlife areas, respectively, in Dublin. They received their big break when they were approached by popular Irish singer/musician Damien Rice, who provided support for them at Oxegen, Ireland's equivalent of Woodstock or Lollapalooza. Since then, their career took off and they now tour extensively around the world.

The weather on Saturday was unusually nice by Bay Area standards, prompting Gabriela to facetiously note that San Francisco weather feels "tropical". Darkness wasn't even settling in when the opening set of Xavier Rudd and Izintaba took to the stage at 8PM. The band used a wide assortment of instruments (prominently featuring Rudd on didjeridu) and played six songs in 50 minutes. You can guess what my overall impression of the band is if you notice what the average length of each song comes out to be. While the songs all started out well, they soon overstayed their welcome. The lyrics were repetitive and one song (a ~15 minute epic) made me ask myself "I wonder how much longer this song is". However, I enjoyed the presence of his two bandmates (on drums/bongo and bass guitar) who grooved and provided an upbeat and humble air to their playing. Other members of the audience seemed to have enjoyed their performance more than I did, sending them off with enthusiastic applause at the conclusion of their set.

After a stage change that took a lengthy 20 minute, RodGab took to the stage. In the crowd's roar, they began the night with their popular single Hanuman (first video below). Immediately, the audience began to sway and dance to the music and I found myself unconsciously swaying along as well. Their music was infectious and invited you to dance. They smoldered with passion onstage, with Rodrigo oftentimes looking deeply towards Gabriela while she closed her eyes to be more attuned to the music. That's not to say they were playing within themselves the whole night; quite the contrary, by running in place, jumping up and down, or simply moving to face another part of the crowd, they were able to excite the listeners and put them on a high. They also had the audience participate en masse, asking different sections of the crowd to clap out simple rhythms, which provided the rhythmic accompaniment to one of their songs. In the few times they spoke to the audience, it became obvious that Gabriela was the more articulate of the two but Rodrigo's loss for words was incredibly endearing for the audience.

As awesome as they are, I was worried going in that the duo's playing would begin to sound too similar and tedious after a period of time. After all, empirically, the only things onstage for the whole concert were the two performers and their guitars. However, this fear were quickly allayed, for they are more than capable of creating a kaleidoscope of colors from one guitar. Rodrigo's capricious fingerwork is sweet in sound and he occasionally uses the wah-wah pedal to great effect. Gabriela is a beast on rhythm. By tapping and hitting different parts of the guitar, she creates different percussive sounds for her rhythmic beats. Their set list was incredibly diverse, ranging from flamenco to heavy metal to world music. The two guest artists of the night helped diversify their sound. L. Shankar, probably best known for providing the opening vocals to the TV show Heroes, hypnotized the crowd with his soothing voice. Jazz guitar legend Al di Meola performed a solo before participating in a jam session with RodGab. In both instances, there were technical (i.e. hardware) malfunctions: Shankar's double electric five-string violin was barely audible and one of the Meola's guitar strings weren't being picked up on the amp. Nonetheless, the audience obviously loved the fact they were were there in concert and wildly cheered when the two guest artists left the stage.

For me, the two high points of the concert was when the duo didn't play together. Each performed their own solos that highlighted their fortes. Rodrigo began his solo with a highly intimate and lyrical melody, which elicited many "I love you Rodrigo!" from the audience. The music became more and more excited until his heavy metal influences (and the wah-wah pedal) came back. Even though his solo was pretty damn amazing, Gabriela's solo absolutely blew everyone away. Her right hand technique, perfectly knowing when to strum the chord amidst the flurry of percussive motions, mesmerized everyone. The crowd was in an absolute frenzy when she finished.

They ended the concert right at 11PM with Tamacun (last video below). Due to the theatre curfew, the duo were not able to oblige the appreciative crowd's calls for encores. I really hoped to hear their rendition of Stairway to Heaven (second video below), but alas, that was not on their set list for the night. Regardless, the concert is still one of the best I've ever been to. My friend who went with me to the concert made an interesting comment when she said she loves these two because they are real guitarists. After thinking about this statement for a moment, I wholeheartedly agree. Most mainstream "guitarists" I see nowadays (Taylor Swift immediately comes to mind) are simply using the same strum patterns on the same chord progression over and over again. These pop artists ask what the guitar can do for them, whereas genuine guitarists ask what can they do to further the art of guitar playing. I believe the reason why they have achieved such an enthusiastic following is because their playing is genuine and they do not treat guitar-playing as a means to an end. Rodrigo y Gabriela are consummate musicians and artisans in their own right and I eagerly look forward to the next time they visit the Bay Area.