Finally, and after thirty years, people from Barcelona could
listen to the Canterbury Tales.
And we could do it in a great venue, the beautiful Luz
de Gas, one of the few venues where audience can enjoy
a progressive show comfortably.
The man in charge of heating the ambient from a little stage
was Guillermo
Cides. Armed with his stick, the great
Argentinean musician shocked the audience with a high technique
and skill showing that he«s a real orchestra-man. After two
original tracks and an amazing cover of a Bach«s
melody, he introduced three of his pupils who delighted us
with two complex song. The show was great and we«re waiting
for his next show in the same venue on friday June 27th along
with two stick virtuosos: Jim Lampi
and Ron Baggerman.
After some impatiently minutes, the curtain fell and showed
the kings of the night: Caravan.
They demonstrated all the experience achieved since their
beginnings, late sixties.
Currently the band is formed by the leader and original member
Pye Hastings (vocals and guitars),
Jim Leverton (bass and vocals),
Geoffrey Richardson (violin
and flute), Doug Boyle (guitar),
Jan Schelhaas (keyboards) and
the phlegmatic Richard Coughlan
(drums) also an original member. I missed the Sinclair
brothers (really important in the first three Caravan«s
albums) but I must admit that both Schelhaas
and Leverton were great with
their instruments.
Of course, time is cruel sometimes and we could notice that
in Hastings« voice that isn«t
the same. Anyway that handicap was supplied with the power
of a great guitarist like Boyle
who amazed the audience with his work. In the same way it«s
a pleasure to see Richardson
playing violin. He even used his instrument as if it was a
guitar.
The setlist was a little bit short even more if we have in
mind their long career. Some of the songs from their golden
age were missed, all of them much better than the new material
(they played tracks taken from the forthcoming album “Unauthorised
Breakfast Item”). The most acclaimed moments
were “Nine Feet Underground”
(“In the Land of the Grey and Pink”) and “For
Richard” (“If I Could Do It All Over Again,
I’d Do It All Over You”), the last song of the
show.
The negative point was that there wasn«t any encore, perhaps
due to problems with the venue and the city council. The band
wasn«t guilty about it, but people left the venue a little
bit disappointed.
Let«s hope we won«t have to wait thirty more years!. |