Mira como es, asere, cántalo
/Cimarrón

The Soundcheck

The trip from Luxembourg to Paris went smoothly and we arrived with time to check in at the hotel and even take a look around the neighborhood before going to the soundcheck. As I mentioned in the last report, soundchecks are noisy and take a long time. Most of the time is spent waiting around while the technicans connect all the instruments one by one ending with the microphones for the singers. One technician handles the sound for the on-stage monitors and another adjusts the sound that the audience will hear.

We were taken in private cars to the venue, Back-up, so people arrived at different times. When I got there most of the guys had found a place to sit and were checking out the flyers for the concert.

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Maykel y Mike

Below is a video montage of what the guys were doing as they waited and waited and waited. As you can see they find various ways of entertaining themselves such as playing other people's instrumets. Pepé took over on güiro, Jaime on bass and the metales warmed up in various spots around the room. I noticed that the stage was a bit shaky and that there was a gap between the upper level and the lower level. I don't know how the singers manage to move and dance around on stage without tripping over the electrical cords and each other. As you can see in the next video clip Norberto wasn't too concerned and in fact saw it as an opportunity.

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Hanging out at the soundcheck

As more instruments got hooked up it got more interesting. Maykel started playing around with some ideas for a ballad intro to Años. He often uses the the soundcheck as a chance to show new things to the band.

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Showing the singers a new idea

Finally they were ready to put the whole thing together and see how it sounded. Here they are doing Cimarrón and you may notice the guys signaling the soundman to make changes in their monitors.

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Cimarrón during the soundcheck

How to feed Cubans

One might think that while Cubans are in Europe they would be interested in sampling the varied cuisines of the countries they visit. Not so. The Cubans I've met are suspicious of any food they don't recognize. They also almost never eat vegetables, so a tasty salad is the last thing they want to see on their plate. If you one day find yourself hosting a dinner for a Cuban band here is some advice: chicken and roast pork are a pretty safe bet as are rice, french fries (chips in the Queen's English) and pasta. Don't mix vegetables with anything because they will just pick all the vegetables out before eating anyway. Also some fruit juice is usually popular, especially if you can find apple, mango or guava rather than just orange juice.

While the guys waited for the food they took a look at the huge banner that was given to Maykel as a present. And new Salsa Mayor shirts were handed out to all the bandmembers to be worn that evening. I know that there are fans who want to buy a Salsa Mayor t-shirt, but they didn't have any extras; they were exclusively for the band.

Orly, the promoter of the concert, really knows how to make the musicians feel at home. The dinner was very Cuban with fried chicken, white rice, arroz congrís, and tostones, and the guys were very excited about having a Cuban meal. For a textbook example of a good meal for Cubans, watch the video below.

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A Cuban meal

The Concert was Incredible!

As I said, Orly knows how to make the musicians feel at home. She also knows how to maximize the concert experience for both the band and the audience. To heighten the tension before the concert, she made an announcement about the band's arrival, including their intro theme taken from their new Live CD, and had the band walk through the audience to reach the backstage section, which is actually a balcony. Just look at what a great reaction from the audience!

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Salsa Mayor has entered the building

The venue was hot! And I'm not just talking about the design of the place, but it was really hot. The experienced Parisians had their fans with them to keep cool. But the poor guys on stage dancing under the lights in the nice but long-sleeved Salsa Mayor t-shirts had a tough time of it. Ricardito had to dry Maykel's face a few times since his hands were occupied playing the piano.

As in Luxembourg, and indeed throughout the tour, they opened the concert with Esto está. I'm sure Maykel chose Esto está as opener because it has been a universal hit. As the tour progressed we could clearly see that each city had it's own list of favorite Salsa Mayor songs. But in Paris they know and love them all. From the first note to end the of encore the fans were dancing and singing along. They cheered like nothing I'd ever seen. I've mentioned before that Salsa Mayor puts on an energetic show, but with this type of feedback from the audience the concert was electric.

"Dame la clave cubana!"

Quitándome lo malo was the second song. You just gotta love that heavy mambo that hits you at about 2:50 and then "ese palo, ese palo mayombe me bota lo malo y me trae lo bueno". The song has a new coro that isn't even on the Live CD. It's a little advice about how to quitarte lo malo "deja de soñar, deja de volar, deja la bolá, que te tiene como loco".

"Oye que yo soy el brujo"

Third up was La masa. It is one of the new songs on the Live CD and is an instant hit. The minute you hear the opening tumbao you know it's going to be one of your favorites. As with Luxembourg, although the CD still hadn't been released at this time, there were fans in Paris that already knew the song well enough to sing along. During the early part of the tour they were adding a reggaeton section sung by Ricardito that is not on the Live CD. Later in the tour the reggaeton disappeared. I think they realized that it isn't as popular here as in Cuba.

"¿Qué es lo que quiere la pura caballero? Que yo la mase otra vez."

Ella dice was next. Normally I want pure timba na' má', but I have just fallen in love with this little ballad intro. Judging from the popularity of the Ella dice clip from Zürich that I uploaded at YouTube, I am not alone. One nice thing is that Maykel played the piano part a little differently at each concert so it was never exactly the same.

"Si vuelves a decir que te deseas ir..."

Ella dice is also the "despelote contest" song. And it was at this concert that Maykel began awarding the winner a copy of the Live CD. As in Luxembourg there was no shortage of women who wanted to participate, and soon there was hardly any room left on stage for the singers.

They picked up the pace with Que tengo, one of the fastest songs on the Recoge y vete CD. It has that great timbal solo, but in Paris there was a bit of a complication because the drumhead broke on one of the timbales just before it was time for the solo. So Germán played it on one timbal with a touch of tom. The whole audience was jumping up and down and singing "Cui, cui, cuidao". El Noro got the ladies screaming with his "casi pa'l piso" move, but from my vantage point I didn't get a picture.

"Es que yo soy así, cubano"

I really can't say enough about what a great audience they had that night. They were nuts! Just check this clip out from the break between Que tengo and Brujería. You'd think it was a soccor (football in the Queen's English) match.

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Paris se puso loco por la Salsa Mayor

Of course during Brujería they had the little "limpiate, sálvate, despójate" dance which was much appreciated. Another memorable moment in this concert was during Lo bello por dentro when Maykel introduced the bandmembers. Of course there was much cheering, but when he got to himself, rather than introducing himself he called out "¿Y quién soy yo?" and the crowd yelled back "¡Maykel Blanco!". And again "¿Quién soy yo?" "¡Maykel Blanco!". It was like everyone was on a timba high: the band, the audience; and it was more a big party than a concert.

Although Maykel was playing with the idea of a ballad intro to Años during the soundcheck, he didn't put it into practice at this concert. And then came the now famous Recoge y vete in Paris moment. The fans went crazy with the first notes of the song and cheered wildly when they reached the tumbao and the "como en mi Cuba nadie baila el son" coro. I don't know how many digital cameras and telephones I saw raised to film this song. It is without a doubt a megahit that will be around for years to come. And of course there's the part where Maykel had them repeat the "Colombia y su vallenato, eso si que suena bien" section so that the audience could sing. And finally when the song reached its false ending the audience shouted out "¿Eh, se acabó?" without any prompting and in fact continued shouting for quite a while.

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"¿Eh, se acabó?"

Wow! It seemed like things would have to go downhill from there. But to close the concert Maykel introduced "del próximo disco, Anda y pégate" and the audience responded by cheering. Yes, apparently there were already some Parisians who were familar with this song as well. Personally I think it will be yet another Salsa Mayor hit. And in fact the lyrics make me think a little of what it must have felt like for the band that night. "Sí, no es tarea fácil, no, alcanzar el sueño." And it must have felt like a dream come true for Maykel after much struggling and hard work to finally bring his band on their first European tour and then to meet a response like this.

"Ya llegó, la máquina llegó barriendo caminos"

As you can imagine the audience wasn't about to say goodbye. They demanded an encore and in fact were very specific. Rather than just yelling out "otra, otra" they yelled "Cimarrón, Cimarrón". So the guys came back and obliged them by performing a very nice rendition of Cimarrón with a cool coro at the end "Mira como es, asere, cántalo".

I know that I keep saying things like "You had to be there to really understand what that night was like". I have done my best through my little comments to try to help recreate the feeling we had that night. But in the end no words can really cause you to feel the heat and excitement of that night. It won't make your pulse race and your feet itch to dance. So the only solution that I could see was to compress 2 hours of video by giving you about 1 minute from each song. In some cases I just couldn't limit myself to 1 minute, and I spent hours deciding what minute to pick from each song. The result is the 18-minute Potpuri de Paris. Enjoy!

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Video potpuri de Paris

After the concert there was much autographing of CDs before the band finally returned to the hotel "a las tres de la mañunga", to quote La masa, to get some well-earned sleep.

Maykel signing the Live, Desde la Casa de la Música CD

But something happened that night at the hotel, something that disturbed the sleep of the band. Click the link below for the next report to find out what it was...

Click here for July 4, 2007 - Los Mayores en Zurich!