Let me preface by saying I love just about everything Santana has done… There are some stinkers though. So last night’s concert event was happy and… not so happy.
Michael Franti and Spearhead opened the show. I recently discovered Franti from his hit Say Hey (I Love You) and it fun to watch the band warm up the audience. In a way, Franti and the band make a nice compliment to the upcoming Santana set.
Set change
Santana and his 10 piece band (2 male singers, bass, guitar, keyboard, 2 horns, 2 percussionists and the drummer)
"The Band" open the show with, uh, ****. They are just banging and blowing and scratching at their guitars for just a loud wall of sound. WTF. Then once they get that 5 minute mess over they kick into AC/DC’s Back In Black from Santana’s latest project “Guitar Heaven: The Greatest Guitar Classics of All Time”. This project was what I was thinking of that had misses. And Back In Black is a major miss for me. Rapping AC/DC? I don’t think so.
So I’m kinda stewing, thinking my first 15 minutes with Santana are going very bad. Then he starts playing the hits. Thank gawd. The groove is laid and Santana does what he does best, bends those strings effortlessly. He mostly plays his older stuff which is fine by me. At one point he pulls out Corazon Espinado, a beautiful latin grooved peppy song. In the background is video footage of African tribes dancing (not to his song, just their tribal dances) and I was thinking wow, what a contrast. It fits and rather enlightening.
At one point Santana’s wife takes over the drum kit to play a song… so I thought. Well, she winds up playing about a 20 minute drum solo. First, I’m not a fan of Drum solo’s. Second, I didn’t think she was all that great. Precision wise. She could play hard with interesting fills, but she missed some and went in and out of a groove. She played the song kind of sloppily. I was not impressed. Of course it doesn’t help comparing her to group’s long time drummer Dennis Chambers.
Oh by the way, Benny Rietveld, Bass Player, had a couple of minutes to show off his lightening speed groove. Awesome.
Lastly I was satisfied with the set list. I mean his catalog is huge and to hope for the songs I wanted to hear was just that hope.
But not trying to sound like an old man here, this was one LOUD concert. Good Gawd it was loud. I’ve been to this concert venue many times. It’s rather small to middle size and there is no need to play it so loud. The first song or two had the mix wrong and you could barely hear Santana’s guitar.
All in all, I’m glad I got to see him. Good memories on an amazing guitarist and band.