are no strangers to the mashup. Their dueling-fretboards blend Irish, Mexican and rock traditions into a post-colonial musical dialect that propelled them from busking on Dublin streets to selling out venues worldwide. But for their most recent album, the musicians took a significant stylistic departure, reinventing their previously-recorded material in Cuba with a 13-piece orchestra, also called C.U.B.A. (which apparently stands for the pointedly Soviet-sounding “Collective Universal Band Association”).
The result takes Rod y Gab’s guitars (which already make more noise than any two acoustic guitars really should) and places them at center stage among traditional Cuban musical stylings. Though this may have not been the show the crowd was expecting at the Tuesday night, it didn’t take long for the audience to warm up to the frenetic, yet artful, melding of musical traditions.
The band began with a loosely-structured jam riffing off the ’90s-era rock playing before their set, foreshadowing the improvisational spirit of the evening. Familiar songs like “Santo Domingo” and “Ixtapa” were barely recognizable amid a swirl of horns, congas and keys, but nonetheless, held together with Gabriela’s kinetic guitar stylings and Rodrigo’s more technical intricacy. As Rodrigo humbly understated in a moment of between-song banter, “This is not the show we usually bring.”
Later, C.U.B.A. exited and Rodrigo y Gabriela took turns playing both individually and together in their more accustomed acoustic format. In this milieu, the duo’s stylistic differences are apparent. Itap easy to see why Gabriela recently required medical attention for stress-related injuries to her hand. She bounces across the stage, headbanging and dancing, drumming her hands across the body of her instrument in almost impossible-to-understand motions. Rodrigo’s style is more static and studied. He barely appears to move at times, yet the sound he creates is unimaginably expansive. Together, the differences complement each other and somehow make two make two guitars sound like a full band.
The pair ended the evening with C.U.B.A. joining them onstage. At this point, few in the crowd remained seated, obviously accepting the band’s stylistic overhaul and giving themselves over to the intensity of the new sound. Perhaps this is not the show Rod y Gab usually bring, but judging by how many were willing to get on their feet on a Tuesday night, itap a show we’ll gladly take.
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Cassandra Schoon is a Denver freelance writer and regular Reverb contributor.
Seth McConnell is a member of YourHub at The Denver Post and a new contributor to Reverb.
