Conrad -> RE: Gerardo’s Pittsburgh Performance (Dec. 9 2008 9:42:51)
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Great show. I was able to get down to it, too, along with Ilia from the foro and some other great people from Ottawa. I had forgotten about Gerardo's injury and now it makes sense because he was more understated than I would expect but it was still fantastic. Michael organized a juerga at a restaurant afterward but the female singer Davinia was a little ill so the band had to leave to check on her and the mood was sombre for a while (she turned out all right though). After they left, Ramin from flamenco-teacher and Jose from D.C. and Michael and even a few classical players, too... they all played some great music and we had a good time despite the band's absence. Some of us were lucky enough to run in to Gerardo at the hotel, too. Unfortunately, I ran in to them all alone and their daughter was not there to interpret so I did my best in a few Spanish phrases to communicate some things to them. I was a nervous wreck and probably made an ass of myself! But they all seemed very gracious even though I may have interrupted their breakfast a bit. Big thanks goes out to Michael Chapman for seemingly single-handedly organizing everything. A few fun moments at the concert: Gerardo played one falseta twice which I thought was a little funny even though it was a goody. He also started a falseta just as Davinia began to sing once which gave me a laugh. He also hit his guitar by mistake on the SM57 mic at one point, woops. There was also, as John mentioned above, a time for some solo cante from Davinia and Jesus accompanied by Lucas, the cajon player, all of them doing nubillos on a table that Lukas brought out himself. The stage door made for some quirky moments because it had no knob and the artists went to push the door every time they left the stage when they should have pulled somehow. And then it would swing open because it didn't close properly. So when Jesus and Davinia came out to sing their tonas etc... you could hear Gerardo's guitar backstage practicing, and when Lucas was out with them, I could see in his eyes that he was having a good chuckle about that. Overall, definitely worth the long drive for me and others. Carmen's choreography was very well matched to Gerardo's music, too. And Lucas was a very complimentary cajon player who I had not seen before.
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