While here we are still arguing about what is and what is not Catalan rumbaa few kilometers to the north, the Gipsy kings They continue to take over the stages of half the world. Without exaggeration: after passing through Palau of Catalan Music, this Wednesday (sold out), their next concerts are in Istanbul, Dubai (New Year’s Eve at the great ‘seven star’ hotel Burj Al Arab), and from there to Lima, Guatemala, San Salvador… Etc. Undisputed aces of the sector, they have known how to make the attributes of the genre their own like no one else, or those that the general public has internalized and expects, and they demonstrate it in overwhelming recitals like the one hosted by the Mil·lenni Festival.
The formation known as Gipsy Kings by André Reyes. There is another one around the older brother, Nicolás. Both musicians, originally from Montpellierare part of a family tree with roots in the exiles of the Republic, in one of whose branches appears the same Silver Hands. And, well, at the Palau, these ‘gypsy kings’ made an impact with their abundance: keys, double percussion, electric bass and six guitars at the ready, shaking the room with ‘A tu vera’ and ‘Djobi djoba’.
Rumba your way
In the center, André Reyes, acting as a factotum and taking turns performing vocal duties with other guitarists (some of them nephews). If the essence of Catalan rumba is a guitar and some clappingAs Peret Reyes told this newspaper a few months ago, it is clear that the Gipsy Kings are something else. There is the trace, the touch, of the familiar Barcelona style, but they enrich it, or decorate it, filling in bars with the synthesizer or incorporating some other pinch of salsa tumbao (and jazz), and the ventilated gamer (hitting the box) is a little diluted.
But they destroy. Concert with hardly any pauses, no boring solos, no chatter. Dominating the ‘tempo’ of the show, they only modulated the tone with some heartfelt mid-tempo (‘Tristessa’), leading to a madness ‘in crescendo’: ‘Pharaon’, ‘Bem bem Maria’ and a ‘My way’ that recalled that, in the key of rumba, everything, including the epic, is sweeter and more relative. And time for ‘Bamboleo’ (that is, the ‘Caballo Viejo’ by Simón Díaz) and ‘Volare’ (that is, ‘Nel blu dipinto di blu’, by Domenico Modugno), songs that since the 80s have been associated with the Gipsy Kings almost as if they were theirs.
The entire concert became like a long, galloping encore, given the intensity. The director of Mil·lenni, Martín Pérez, announced that the Gipsy Kings’ Christmas concert will become an annual rite. “In a year, at the same time, in the same place!” he proposed. “And the same people!” replied a voice from the audience. And this must be how traditions are created.
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