Ya llegó, la máquina llegó, llegó, viene barriendo caminos
/Anda y pégate

The Drive

While los Mayores spent a couple of days resting, shopping and eating (we found this place that had great ice cream), the tour manager, Giovanni, spent them frantically looking for a replacement bus. The original guagua that picked the band up at the airport broke down. Fortunately he managed to locate a new one, but this was more a guagüita than a guagua. It was big enough for everyone and the luggage...barely.

Due to the delay with the bus, we didn't leave at 12:30am as planned but at 6:00am the morning of June 30. I've never met a Cuban musician who was a morning person, so things were pretty quiet as everyone loaded their stuff into the bus and found a seat. Pepe and I remained outside the bus filming, and of the musicians, Maykel was the last one to board.

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Pepito reportando, con Salsa Mayor representante Ramón y sonidista Vladimir

A word of advice for anyone who may in the future follow a band on tour: choose your seat with care the first time you sit down. That will be your seat every day for the entire tour, so there is a certain amount of sense in getting out of bed early the first day to be sure you get a good spot. I ended up in the back of the bus, which was OK with me because from here I could see everything going on in the bus.

Finally Giovanni climbed aboard and we started off on what was calculated to be a 9-hour trip to Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg. Vladimir brought everyone croissants for breakfast, and off we went. Woo hoo!

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The historic departure of Salsa Mayor for their first ever concert in Europe!

I'm not sure if the person who calculated the travel times from city to city was an optimist or if it was simply that the poor little guagüita didn't have the strength to get up to 100 km/h, but the trip that was supposed to take 9 hours took about 12.

After a few hours we took a break at a rest stop somewhere in Italy and everyone drank cappuccino and ate pastries. As usual the guys found things to look at and consider buying as presents for the people back home.

Ramón, Maykel & Vladimir

Osvaldo, Antonio & Germán hanging out

El Noro & Ricardito

We hit the road again and it wasn't long before the guys started falling asleep. Some of them even took turns sleeping on the floor so they could stretch their legs out. They had Ahmed's trumpet case for a pillow. Ah the glamour of being on tour!

    
Antonio & Jaime durmiendo en el piso

Those who stayed awake got to see some beautiful scenery as we passed through the Italian Alps.

The Italian Alps as seen from the rear window of the bus
Note the fortress on the hill - pretty cool!

Break number two took place somewhere in the Alps. The guys enjoyed the scenery and took a lot of pictures. Pepe continued filming his report. And I decided it was time to start bothering the guys for comments, asking the singers to sing, and generally hassling the bandmembers. After all, that was the whole point of my being there.

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Maykel saluda al los fans de Europa...
Maykel & Richard escuchan La Revé con los audiofonos al reves...
Los cantantes cantan un poco de Anda y pégate.

And so we continued until about 6:00pm, with the guys alternating between sleeping and what was sometimes lively conversation. I was told more than once "You can't put this on the Internet". But here is something I can put on the internet, a spontaneous musical interlude (these arose from time to time and the bus drivers often looked nervous as the guys pounded on the windows as if they were congas) as well as a look at the road from the front of the bus.

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En la guagüita

The Soundcheck & the Showers

Due to the late start and the unexpected additional 3 hours of driving, there was no time to go to the hotel. We went straight to Kulturfabrik for the soundcheck. The promoter and sound technicians were waiting so they got started right away. Since I'm not really needed much at the soundcheck (sad but true), I took a look around the venue, evaluating with my practiced eye such things the size of the stage, the wall and ceiling and other acoustical factors, the quality of the dressing room, etc.

The venue was quite nice. First you enter a room with a bar and then pass through a big door (good for lots of two-way traffic) into the main room. The stage is large and the acoustics seemed OK. The only slightly disconcerting thing was that the replacement keyboard provided for the one that never arrived at the airport, was actually a piano. So they had 2 pianos and no keyboard. It went OK, although some of the preferred timbres and effects were not available for the keyboard parts. I doubt anyone even noticed.

   
Identical Roland pianos, but it worked out fine

In general soundchecks seems to always take about 2 hours and they are noisy affairs, with all the instruments playing at the same time, but not together of course. The drums are always the first instrument and they always seem to take the longest. So while Germán was playing first on the toms, then the kick drum, then the timbales an the jamblock and cowbell, you also had the metales warming up. They make a lot of noise. Eventually the bass,  piano and keyboard get tested and the singers are always last. Finally they may do parts of 1 or 2 songs making adjustments to the monitors on stage. 

Finishing up the soundcheck with Recoge y vete

With the soundcheck complete it was time to eat a snack and get dressed for the concert. Another excellent feature of this venue was the bathroom with a shower. Going to the hotel was out of the question, but there were enough towels for everyone to take a shower. I waited until last, since, once again, how I look isn't really important to the concert (also sad but true). In the meantime most of the guys were running around shirtless, but, no, I didn't take any pictures or video ladies.

Backstage with Maykel, Ramón & Orly - promoter of the Paris concert

Finally it was time...no more driving, no more waiting. It was time for Maykel Blanco y su Salsa Mayor to have their very first meeting with a European audience. What would happen? From backstage we didn't know if there were 50 people or 500? Did the audience know how to dance casino or were they "world music" fans? Would they stand around sullenly wondering when the band was going to play Chan Chan, or would they be geeks like me who sing along to every song? We were about to find out...

The First Ever Concert of the First Ever European Tour of Salsa Mayor

I went out ahead of the band to find myself a place front and center from which I could film. Pepe had given me his camera so I was trying to film with 2 mini-dv cameras. I was happy to see that the audience numbered closer to 500, so that was one question answered. The age group seemed to be mostly 20s-40s but there were even some people who had brought their children who looked to be between the ages of 6-12.

There was a group of girls with a Cuban flag as well as a few people who, judging from how they danced, looked like they were world music fans. But we all know you don't have to dance casino to enjoy this music. They may not have known the songs, but they had a great time dancing a su manera all night long.

Before leaving Cuba, Salsa Mayor took a 13 day break from performances just to rehearse for the tour. They put together a new intro, which segues into Esto está, chosen no doubt because it has been one of their biggest hits in Europe. So ladies and gentlemen, with no further ado, I give you a video clip of Salsa Mayor performing Esto está - the first ever song of their first ever concert on their first ever tour of Europe!

VIDEO

The first ever song of the first ever concert
of the first ever European Tour of Salsa Mayor

As you can see from the video, the venue was packed and a large percentage of the audience knew the songs. The atmosphere was charged with excitement all night long. I think the fans were as excited to be the first to see Salsa Mayor live as the band was about their first performance.

The concert was divided into two sets. The first set was Esto está, Quitándome lo malo, Que tengo, Años and La masa. At that time the CD Live, Desde la Casa de la Música was still unreleased, but the audience knew the song and El Noro even invited a young lady on stage to sing along with him. She was joined by two others so each of the singers had a dance partner for a little despelote.

By the time La masa ended the concert had been going for 50 minutes and it was past time for the break. They did a little 2-minute despedida with Recoge y vete. The band was ready to keep going because the audience didn't want them to leave, but they stuck to the format of the concert and went backstage for a short break.

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Between sets - the band was feeling pretty good but my tape ran out

The second set lasted over an hour and they began where they left off, this time with a full-length version of Recoge y vete. There is no doubt that this song is already becoming a classic. The audience was ecstatic, singing, jumping up and down, dancing and, of course, yelling out "Eh, se acabo?". I get excited just watching it again. I know there are already plenty of Recoge y vete videos, but this is the best audio/video combination that I have for this song. So here is another video of Salsa Mayor performing Recoge y vete live. Just look at how happy the people are. That's what it's all about.

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Salsa Mayor - Se pone buena la fiesta, se pone buena la pista

Ricardito followed with two numbers: Cimarrón, that has been reworked without the batá intro, and Brujería. During Cimarrón Maykel handed out flowers to someone for her birthday and they sang a little coro to her, not the normal Happy Birthday coro, but something else.

Brujería has a had a couple of new coros added and during the "Limpiate, sálvate, despójate " coro, the metales move up front to do a little dance. They also joined in when about 10 women came up to dance during Ella dice. Maykel called on "los niches" and then left the piano to take charge of the dance contest himself. The Salsa Mayor concerts are well rehearsed, but still leave a lot of room for sponteneity. The band seems to get a lot of inspiration from the audience and modifies the show according to this.

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Los niches bailando - límpiate, sálvate, despójate

The final two songs of the show were Lo bello por dentro, where El Noro did his signature "not quite pa'l piso", and the estreno Anda pégate sung by Ricardito. Although the show had already passed it's alloted time slot, the band was immediately called for an encore. They did La masa again, I'm not really sure why. I guess Maykel had his reasons.

Maykel's point of view during the encores

After the encore the band left the stage to go back to the dressing room for a well-earned meal, but the audience refused to stop yelling "otra, otra" so after a few minutes the promoter came in and asked the band if they would do yet another encore. Of course they said "Yes". I think they were thrilled to find such an enthusiastic, warm welcome here at their first concert, so they were more than happy to give a little love back.

For the second encore they performed Esto está again. And once again I don't know why. It didn't seem to matter to the audience. They loved the song as much at the end of the concert as at the beginning. And thus ended the first ever concert of the first ever European tour of Salsa Mayor. It was a complete success and an foreshadowing of the kind of madness they would meet from the Parisian fans the next day.

Click here for July 1, 2007 - Paris Est Incroyable!