They've Conquered The Fucking Force

Septmeber 18, 2008
Rodrigo y Gabriela at the Grove

What had happened to me just days ago, what tore open the cavity of listlessness, and pulled out a singing sparrow? God, Rodrigo. With your manic finger stomping. And Gabriela, dear Gabriela, hot hands and thumping. How could you have known? That newly opened cavern I call a heart now rests atop a flame of EFFIN HELL, I WANT TO LIVE THIS LIFE. Total flooring of the heart.

I didn't even mind the peoples pseudo-dancing, running amuck in the mid-section posh pit. It was that good. Ne're did I peel my eyes off the two, bouncing to and fro like a scene from a glorious ping pong movie. Rod stood mostly, occasionally observing and strolling the stage like taking his best friend out for a walk. Gab sitting and striking, a lovely bird with a tiny voice, hard sounds.

Led Zep or Metallica in the key of R Y G. Tamacun, Diablo Rojo: two crowd-favorites. We clapped to their beats, dis-rhythmic, yet pleasing. She beat the heckfire out of that guitar, and probably her hand, too. And he would request our voices to join in their choir. I imagined for a second what it would be like to live, day in and out, playing these songs for a room of mostly strangers. I wondered how strange it was to be out of their context and transatlantic, far far away from their homeland. Did they miss such noise and chronic bustle of the city, did they long for tacos de lengua? They travelled from their native Distrito Federal, Mexico. Land of ladrones, microbuses, telenovelas and life-size quesadillas that come alive in your mouth, then make your tongue quiver. Esos Chilangos...

Three flight cancellations and several hours later, (Gab: "It was like the fucking force was against us"), here they were, before a sea of stunned Vaders, each in his own way, breathing irregular, doting on these landscapes of latin-metallic sounds. I stood squealing when Gab's furious hands made unapologetic demands on her guitar. You could say she was a carpenter, in her own way. Molding the wood to create just the right shapes. Slightly grazing the strings to make scratchy shishasshish effects. Rod would look at her, then gain momentum as he perhaps remembered a time in Ireland, where they for a time bussed and scrapped for food money whilst playing for the guinness-guzzlin' fightin' folk. That's my version anyway.

It certainly has been quite some time that I have been so moved this way.