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Posts: 16047
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
My new Favorite Paco concert, 1981
We saw some black and white clips of this show years ago, but the full concert in color is very inspiring for me.
Why do I like this one so much?
1. Paco makes TONS of mistakes. Even Ramon and he are laughing at all the mess. In a way I find it endearing and inspiring for some reason as the concert is still enjoyable with all the errors. He even has to improvise a lot of variations to get out of trouble.
2. I always loved that guitar that he used briefly. The sound from Friday/Saturday in San francisco and later Solo Quiero Caminar and Castro Marin that this instrument was used on I enjoyed. It has a very dry percussive mid range sound that makes the treble notes pop out. Also the look of it, the Rosette really pops out for some reason. Also I have clocked his runs over the years and he always pushed past the normal range using this guitar for some reason. Even in this video we can see that Rio ancho at 105bpm, wow. Anyway, this negra unlike his others has a very dry blanca sound to my ears. He admitted it was not his "best guitar" which was stolen in 79 or 80, so perhaps he was upset even playing this thing as a 2nd tier guitar. He never pulled it out again in public after replacing it with his main guitar in 1982.
3. The repertoire is a great mix of old and new material.
4. It has been a long time since I was inspired by guitar concert. Nobody new is really doing it for me like this guy did. Flamenco I listen to years now is only old cante.
5.Paco has a beard. He said his family thought he was disrespectful doing this so it is rare to see until they had passed away and he started wearing a beard on stage in the mid 2000s til his death.
6. The sound is uncompressed and natural, the guitar sounds like mine when I play in the living room. The video shots of close up technique are great, you can even see the detail in the cejilla.
RE: My new Favorite Paco concert, 1981 (in reply to edguerin)
quote:
ORIGINAL: edguerin
Great material!!!! Reminded me of why I admired Paco and fell in love with flamenco. BTW 1983? 1981?
Yeah, saw that too. I figure 1981 Liege is when the concert actually happened, and the 1983 reference is the year when it was shown on RTBF (la radio-télévision belge de la Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles)
It is a great find, very inspiring! (got something in my eye... BRB)
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