Rodrigo Y Gabriela

Intrigued by the promise of Mexican maestro’s mixing Latin pluckings with heavy metal, I wander into a packed out university hall. The duo of Rodrigo Y Gabriela have wowed crowds at Glastonbury and Womad with their amazing guitar skills. Dressed down in jeans and brown t-shirts (not matching, Gabriela’s is a South Park one) the gorgeous couple do not sing any part of the songs, which seem to be mainly improvised with no set list and a bit of (nod, wink) communication.



There is some in between song story telling, mainly from Gabriela, which does not fit into the style of music (getting pissed on a beach instead of recording an album and other tour tales). Surprisingly we find that the pair’s favourite descriptive word out of their broken but understandable English is the mighty “f*cking” (I counted at least 32 occurrences), but this is hardly surprising with their heavy metal background. To accompany the stories there are many devils horns, which appear quite strange at first, but the more you listen to them the more you warm to them and the dips into metal tendencies. And they call the Leeds crowd the craziest one from the tour!


Back to the music, and it’s a wonder Gabriela doesn’t have RSI with the way her wrist constantly causes every guitar string to produce rambling rhythms whilst Rodrigo picks and plucks his guitar for mind-boggling melodies. The lack of vocals is unnoticed as the sounds produced by these two are mesmorising.

And then there’s the Metallica riffs. It is apparent from their stage persona that they are big fans (both originally started in Mexican Metal band Tierra Acida), even without the clobber (don’t want to overdo it with black eyeliner). The harmonies for ‘One’ and other Metallica hits bring some singing from the crowd, as does the cover of ‘The Wall’ by Pink Floyd. Anyone after this who does not want to rush home and start learning to play guitar is lying to themselves!

FUTURE GIGS