Where: Electric Factory
When: Thursday, Oct. 22
Grade: A
To say the Mexican musical duo of Rodrigo y Gabriela "play" the guitar would technically be true, but simply would not do their skills justice. More appropriately, the pair absolutely master the strings with a fever pitch that stuns audiences.
Their string-plucking abilities were on full display Thursday night at the Electric Factory, where the fervor and oomph of Gab on rhythm guitar and Rod on lead guitar kept the audience clapping in unison while jaws hit the sticky floor of the rock venue.
For those unfamiliar with Rod y Gab (and we'll gladly accept thank-you's for introducing them), the twosome are from Mexico City and, at one time, played in a thrash metal band, before gaining popularity with their 2006 self-titled release.
Their instrumental fusion of flamenco, acoustic rock and classical guitar caught ears in the UK in 2005, after getting a boost from Irish folk rocker Damien Rice, and they've been touring around the world ever since. Thursday night's stop in Philly was to promote their most recent album, 11:11, released Sept. 8.
At 9:25 p.m., the two appeared on a fairly naked stage, decorated with an amp or two and some microphones. From the get-go they were strumming at 100 miles per hour, Rodrigo leading the way with his fingers dancing and blurry, Gabriela providing the rhythm as her rubbery right hand pounded both strings and guitar for melody and percussion.
By the time the duo got to the fourth song of the evening, titled "Hanuman," the crowd's rhythmic clapping added the sound of cymbals to Gab's drumming. It seemed apropos considering Gab's cracked English announcement before the song: "We hope to make you do crazy things, or clap."
Later in the evening, while playing "Ixtapa" off their 2006 album, Rod y Gab seemed to play faster live than on their albums. I stood there, not imagining it could be possible, but watched as they charged through the five-minute song in about four minutes.
And the sweat? Not a drop from either almost 45 minutes into their hour-and-a-half-long set. While Rod crouched like a batter facing a 3-2 count in the ninth and Gab swayed back and forth as if she were standing in line at the DMV, both remained bone dry.
Being hard rock and metalheads themselves, snippets of Rage Against The Machine's "Bombtrack," Metallica's "Master of Puppets," and The White Stripes' "Seven Nation Army" were interspersed throughout the evening.
But their best cover, Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven," came during the encore, and was spliced together with "Tamacun," a breakneck ditty from their first album. It was one hell of a way to wrap up 90 minutes of guitar education, which they capped off with a sincere "Gracias, amigos!"
