I’m trying to write a review of what I experienced last night at Bajofondo‘s concert in Bimbo’s, San Francisco, but I’m at a coffee shop and they’re are playing some lame-ass soft rock radio in the background. I look at the pictures of last night and I’m trying to revive the eargasm I felt, trying to transport myself to that sublime state of pure musical ecstasy, but these horrible ’80s ballads keep bringing me down to my current depressing reality.
Anyway, there’s no way I can make justice with written words to something that has to be experienced in person, so I’m just gonna drop one of my blunt statements: Bajofondo gives the best live show you’ll ever see by any Latin band. Actually, scratch Latin, just any band, period.
By now I assume most of you have seen them, so I won’t even bother trying to defend my seemingly hyperbolic assertion. If you’re amongst the few who haven’t, well, you’re still in time to fix that, they are on tour right now presenting their latest release, Presente, and you might still be in time to catch them somewhere near you.
For those of you who saw them during their Mar Dulce era, this is the rundown of what’s new on Bajofondo’s show: there’s more singing, by more members of the band, which means more instruments rotation, for example, drummer Adrián Sosa gets on the mic and violinist Javier Casalla temporarily takes his place behind the drumset. Juan Campodónico also sings (unfortunately none of his solo side-project compositions as Campo) and at one point he even plays a murga bass drum while the band turn into a bunch of euphoric soccer hooligans cheering themselves up (whatever happened to that roady/hype-man they used to bring on tour, he’d be ideal for these moments). Unlike previous tours, Gustavo Santaolalla didn’t pull out the charango to perform any of his Oscar-winning movie soundtrack tunes, but that’s ok, Bajofondo has a much larger repertoire now. The rest, was very much what you’d expect from a Bajofondo concert, meaning virtuoso execution, hard-hitting beats, hilarious theatricality, lots of crazy facial expressions by the band’s leader and hundreds of girls getting on stage to dance with the band for their encore.
Oh well, I’m now back to my sad coffee-shop reality. For a moment there I almost forgot about this horrible music. They serve Argentine empanadas in this coffee-shop, I’m wondering if eating one would help me bring back some that Rio De La Plata flavor from last night. Chau!