Rodrigo y Gabriela are from Mexico City and have taken the world by storm with their incredibly fast, palpitating guitar music. Combining classical guitar, flamenco, blues, and heavy rock and roll, they have created a sound that is all their own. The majority of their songs are FAST – and when I say fast, I mean I don’t know how their hands don’t fall off after even just one song.
After struggling to make it big in Mexico, the pair moved to
Dublin, Ireland in 1999 where they heard street musicians were popular and
pretty successful. With the help of some
already famous stars (Damien Rice, David Gray…others) they were opening up for
big names and soon found themselves mega famous. Their situation is pretty unique as not too
many Mexican stars make it big around the entire world like they have.
Anyways, their show was absolutely incredible. With Gabriela
playing a mix of guitar AND percussion with her hand (seriously, how does she
do it?) all while energetically jumping up and down and Rodrigo usually
playing the melody, the show was nonstop energy the entire night.
Oh, and they played for over 90 minutes. 90 minutes of nonstop, lightning-speed guitar
picking. They also used a few accessories to create even more unique sounds
like a glass bottle on the guitar strings. Here is a video I took:
They are also pretty cool people. For example, they did this in Dublin last
week to pay homage to their beginnings as street musicians (and to pump up the
city for their show that night!):
Check out another song from their impromptu concert in the
plaza (you can see Gabriela using her hand for percussion really well in this
one):
Anyways, if you ever get a chance to see these guys perform,
I HIGHLY recommend it. Here are their upcoming
shows – and OJO (look!) – they will be performing at the Newport Folk Festival in
Rhode Island coming up in a few weeks!!
Check of their site for other tour dates: http://www.rodgab.com/
And NPR really likes them too: http://www.npr.org/artists/15397659/rodrigo-y-gabriela
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