By Andrew Bansal
August 14th 2016, Hollywood Bowl, Hollywood CA: One often comes across metal musicians and bands influenced by other styles of music which reflects in their creativity as they blend these influences while still playing metal, but it’s almost never the other way round, where musicians with metal roots invent their own style and go on to become a genuinely popular, world-renowned act, selling out arenas everywhere they go. The Mexican acoustic guitar duo of Rodrigo Sanchez and Gabriela Quintero, otherwise known as Rodrigo y Gabriela, or more affectionately as ‘RodGab’, certainly fall in the second category. Moving from their teenage metalhead days they’ve come a long way, infusing latin, folk and other elements to create a fascinating musical world of their own, but they continue to give a nod to metal in their musicianship as well as live performance. This aspect is what has drawn Metal Assault to every Rodrigo y Gabriela show in the Los Angeles area over the past five years, and the duo’s love for metal was none more evident than at the Hollywood Bowl last Sunday August 14th 2016, as they presented their repertoire with some very special guests from the metal world.
Ticket holders trickled in for what appeared to be a sold-out show, looking up and down the bowl from the box press seats. There was a decidedly larger percentage of metalheads in attendance than is usually the case at Bowl shows, and most of them understandably occupied the cheaper seats, as one of the special guests, virtuosic solo artist and ex-Megadeth guitarist Marty Friedman, had already confirmed his participation in this show two weeks ago via his official social networks. Proceedings began promptly at 7:30, as the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra conducted by Thomas Wilkins providing the opening act and started their 30-minute set with a beautiful rendition of the national anthem. They went on to play classical pieces by composers like Soro, Lecuona and Rózsa, as Wilkins not only guided these incredible musicians with aplomb, but also cracked quite a few hilarious jokes after every piece, perhaps knowing that this wasn’t exactly an orchestra crowd, and did well to hold everyone’s attention, even pointing out that iconic Latin singer/flamenco guitarist/actress/sex symbol Charo was sitting in the front row. Wilkins and the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra served as a great appetizer for the extremely savory main course that was to follow soon, in which they would also play a part.
Set List:
01. National Anthem
02. Danza fantástica (Soro)
03. Andalucia (Lecuona)
04. A Chegada dos Chandangos (Jobim)
05. “Love Theme” from ‘El Cid’ (Rózsa)
06. “Interlude” and “Dance” from ‘La Vida Breve’ (Falla)
At 8:30, the lights went out, and while Tool’s ‘The Pot’ was played over the PA, the orchestra and the conductor returned to their seats, followed by Rodrigo and Gabriela slowly walking out to a rousing reception. This splendid 90-minute performance of theirs was divided into two segments, the first with the orchestra, and then without. Their fourth and studio album ‘9 Dead Alive’ was released in 2014 and they’re working on new material for the next one, so there was no real reason for the duo to be touring right now, except to “take your money because we’re Mexicans”, according to Rodrigo as he jokingly said when speaking to the crowd in the initial part of the show. But judging by the capacity crowd here, for a concert that wasn’t cheap by any means, it doesn’t seem like Rodrigo y Gabriela need a reason to tour, other than to simply perform, because they will always sell out shows based on the strength of their sheer talent, specially here at the Hollywood Bowl, a venue they’ve played before.
Despite the next album not releasing until 2017, they presented two brand new, unreleased songs ‘Waiting To Be Free’ and ‘Somos de arena’, both with Rodrigo on vocals, the first one in English and the other in Spanish. These tunes showcased the duo’s continually expanding musical range, and if they’re any indication, this next album should unveil new facets of Rodrigo and Gabriela’s already eclectic musicianship. Besides, of course, they also put forth an assortment of tunes from the past four albums, most of which this crowd was already familiar with, but were once again taken aback from pure awe just about as much as first-timers were. The orchestra segment comprised six tunes in total, and for the final piece, they brought “one of their biggest guitar heroes” Marty Friedman onto the stage. Friedman, who had the duo as guests on the track ‘Wicked Panacea’ which featured on his 2014 solo album ‘Inferno’, was expected by the metalhead crowd to perhaps jam on some Megadeth with RodGab, but instead, the three guitar greats played ‘Oblivion’ by Argentine composer Astor Piazzolla, which turned out to be just as entertaining, if not more, as each of them took turns to occupy center stage. Friedman on electric guitar blazed through his guitar solo in typically scintillating fashion, fully utilizing this opportunity to prove himself as a real musician in front of a largely alien crowd on a massive stage. The orchestra was still going strong in the background, and the combination of these three forces was without doubt one of the highlights of the evening.
Friedman and the orchestra then departed, and it was down to merely the acoustic guitar duo to go on and do their thing for the next 45 minutes. Their segment with the orchestra was indeed powerful, and it would have been a bit of a missed chance if they were to come to the Hollywood Bowl and not invite the in-house orchestra to collaborate with them, but the second part of the set was even more compelling and spellbinding. The terms ‘wizard’ and ‘wizardry’ are often used excessively and loosely to describe musical performances, but if Rodrigo and Gabriela holding the entire Bowl captive solely with their exploits on acoustic guitars is not magical, nothing is. The grateful and fortunate crowd was entranced and enchanted by what they were seeing and hearing, and were putting every ounce of their energy into giving RodGab roaring rounds of applause throughout the segment. In addition to the guitar play, the duo also entertained the audience whenever they spoke on the microphone. Gabriela dispelled the ‘flamenco’ tag they’re often associated with, and rightly said that their “eclectic music played acoustically”, is in fact too eclectic to put in a box. Rodrigo repeatedly mentioned the word ‘metal’, which garnered huge cheers from folks in the upper sections, and from the scattered few metalheads in the box seats, even though it’s clearly awkward to shout at the top of your voice and jump out of your seat like little children when you’re surrounded by a majority of non-metalheads, for whom all this metal talk was nothing more than gibberish. “Without metal, we wouldn’t have been here”, proclaimed Rodrigo proudly, and us metalheads’ black hearts were filled with warmth. For a genre often dismissed in popular culture as ‘noise’, the continually captivating and universally appealing metal-inspired musical journey of Rodrigo y Gabriela is quite a statement. RodGab’s original tunes were all brilliantly performed by them, but things were about to reach the next level, specially for the metal lovers in the audience.
The duo introduced and invited their longtime friend and collaborator, Metallica bassist Robert Trujillo, onto the stage, but Trujillo said he needed to hear them pull off a real metal song on their own before he’d agree to jam with them. Immediately, Rodrigo and Gabriela started playing Megadeth’s ‘Holy Wars’ and went on to do the entire song. If anyone ever had any doubt about the technical brilliance and classical/acoustic background of early Megadeth, RodGab just about squashed them all, as ‘Holy Wars’ sounded like it was always written for them. Now it was Trujillo’s turn, and he joined them for a Metallica medley of ‘Orion’, ‘Battery’ andthe first segment of ‘For Whom The Bell Tolls’. Metallica themselves never play the intro section of ‘Battery’ live, and thanks to RodGab, this was a very, very rare occasion where we got to hear it played live. The same can be said about the outro section of ‘Orion’, which was also played in entirety by RodGab and Trujillo. Metalheads were losing their minds and cheering along for the whole medley. The trio ended with a little ‘Ride The Lightning’ tease, and the Metallica bassist, once again stamping his class as the best musician of his band at this point, gracefully departed the stage.
The show was not over yet, as the duo played a few more songs and returned for an encore, before finally saying goodbye to their beloved Hollywood Bowl faithful. Attendees paid good money to attend this concert, and this writer can perhaps speak on behalf of everyone when saying that it was worth it and more. As recent and distant history would prove, far inferior musicians have charged much more money to play here at the Bowl, and haven’t come close to matching the overwhelming brilliance and power of Rodrigo y Gabriela. The duo succeeded in putting forth what stands as the show of the year till date, and readers still uninitiated with Rodrigo y Gabriela are very strongly and enthusiastically advised to explore this metal-inspired acoustic wizardry.
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Set List:
Part 1 – with Hollywood Bowl Orchestra:
01. Santo Domingo
02. Savitri
03. Logos
04. Hora Zero
05. Waiting To Be Free (new song)
06. Oblivion feat. Marty Friedman
Part 2 – without orchestra:
07. Soundmaker
08. Hanuman
09. Diablo Rojo
10. Holy Wars (Megadeth cover)
11. Orion (Metallica cover) feat. Robert Trujillo
12. For Whom The Bell Tolls (Metallica cover, partial) feat. Robert Trujillo
13. Battery (Metallica cover) feat. Robert Trujillo
14. Somos de arena (new song)
15. The Russian Messenger
Encore:
16. Tamacun
Remaining Tour Dates:
08/15/2016 – Solana Beach, CA @ Belly Up
08/16/2016 – Solana Beach, CA @ Belly Up