Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Stairway to Heaven live (Rodrigo y Gabriela)


Rodrigo (Sanchez) and Gabriela (Quintero) are two fast-fingered, Dublin-based, Mexicans with a unique sound created on acoustic guitars. Their music is difficult to define, straddling both world and rock, and often imbued with timeless Hispano–classical influences. The fire in it comes from their life-long passion for metal music. This spring, Rodrigo y Gabriela beat both the Arctic Monkeys AND Johnny Cash to number one in the Irish charts.
Rodrigo is a deft finger-picker who can move from raging speed to sensual soul in the space of a fret, while Gabriela employs fast, rhythmic techniques. Her percussionist’s thrashing of strings and drumming of the instrument’s body inevitably raises comparisons with flamenco – which they acknowledge as an influence but swerve as a pigeonhole. The duo’s repertoire flies beyond familiar Latin folk guitarists’ styles because of the metal connection: their re-workings of Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven” and Metallica’s “Orion” are musts, and the presence, on “Ixtapa,” of the fiery Hungarian gypsy violinist, Roby Lakatos, is inspirational.

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