CALEXICO - FIESTA AT THE FILLMORE!
Everything started with a project. In 1996 Joey Burns and John Convertino left their former band "Giant Sand" - to strike out on their own. Musicians have come and gone, but most of them stayed - Calexico became a band.
At Calexico concerts the people don't just stand around and listen to the music. They feel it. The audience is dancing to the trumpet fanfares and the exploding jam sessions - they are dancing to a musical cocktail with ingredients like Country-Rock, Mariachi, Latin Jazz and Mood Music. It's a cocktail called ‘Tucson-Desert-Rock’. Order it with a glass of Tequila Sunrise and you will feel like sitting in a Mexican bar. But I promise you won't need Tequila to enjoy the show; with musical diversity they play their songs on a wide variety of instruments: harmonica, pedal steel guitars, trumpets, marimbas, strings, and more.
Everything started with a project. In 1996 Joey Burns and John Convertino left their former band "Giant Sand" - to strike out on their own. Musicians have come and gone, but most of them stayed - Calexico became a band.
At Calexico concerts the people don't just stand around and listen to the music. They feel it. The audience is dancing to the trumpet fanfares and the exploding jam sessions - they are dancing to a musical cocktail with ingredients like Country-Rock, Mariachi, Latin Jazz and Mood Music. It's a cocktail called ‘Tucson-Desert-Rock’. Order it with a glass of Tequila Sunrise and you will feel like sitting in a Mexican bar. But I promise you won't need Tequila to enjoy the show; with musical diversity they play their songs on a wide variety of instruments: harmonica, pedal steel guitars, trumpets, marimbas, strings, and more.
Calexico is not a highly-organized, routine, live band with studied phrases - though that would be understandable after all these years. Instead, Calexico is an exception - they are always good for a surprise and never the same.
On 28 September they played at "The Fillmore" in San Francisco, the venue we had just visited a couple of days before for history’s sake (see my blog of 09/26/08). Now here was Calexico to present their new album "Carried To Dust."
Again, it was a little tricky to find the Fillmore. Again, we missed the tunnel. And, again, we missed the right lane. But finally we arrived there.
We didn’t have to line up at the doorway - we were almost the first people there. I got the "Over 21" stamp and the doorman cut our tickets in to halves.
We didn’t have to line up at the doorway - we were almost the first people there. I got the "Over 21" stamp and the doorman cut our tickets in to halves.
The first thing we noticed was the amazing poster work at the Fillmore. The walls upstairs around the balcony and in the hallway just outside the main room downstairs are covered with years and years worth of posters of bands that have played there. It's like a museum of music experience, and it is so brilliant.
Photos of Bill Graham, performing artists in the Fillmore and 60s festivals - so much to see. We were lucky, that we were that early! Loveable at the entrance: A big pail with red apples and a sign which says "Take one... or two..." and the man with the cowboy hat welcoming every single visitor with a "Hello, how are you? Enjoy the show!"
Photos of Bill Graham, performing artists in the Fillmore and 60s festivals - so much to see. We were lucky, that we were that early! Loveable at the entrance: A big pail with red apples and a sign which says "Take one... or two..." and the man with the cowboy hat welcoming every single visitor with a "Hello, how are you? Enjoy the show!"
The room with the stage was amazing - lilac and pink light from ten candelabra at the roof, Janis Joplin music and people sitting in front of the stage having some drinks created a wonderful atmosphere. Nothing we'd ever read about the Fillmore could convey that feeling.
"The Cave Singers" opened the evening at 8 pm. An American Band from Seattle with three guys who really look like "Cave Singers" They’ve beards and long hair like men of the caves from the stone age.
But they played nice music: Acoustic guitar and drums plus various instruments like melodica, harmonica and electric guitar and the voice of the singer Pete Quirk. The audience was excited by the instrumental variety.
"The Cave Singers" opened the evening at 8 pm. An American Band from Seattle with three guys who really look like "Cave Singers" They’ve beards and long hair like men of the caves from the stone age.
But they played nice music: Acoustic guitar and drums plus various instruments like melodica, harmonica and electric guitar and the voice of the singer Pete Quirk. The audience was excited by the instrumental variety.
After 45 minutes they left the stage to make room for the main act of the evening."Calexico" came on to the stage - but not to perform. First they placed their instruments, checked the sound and plug in the last cables. No roadies - "Calexico" is a DIY-band!But finally, they entered the stage to play music.
I had been at a concert of the band before. I remembered an amazing light show and a perfect sound. I remembered that they sounded melancholic, a little sad - sadly amazing.
But this evening showed another side of "Calexico": Two trumpets and much Mexican influences started a Mexican party in the Fillmore.The band was perfectly matched. A short side glance and the instrumentalist were on the same track. Everyone of the seven musicians were outstandingly talented. Sometimes the viewer (and listener) felt like standing in Calexico's rehearsal room, watching them jamming and having a great time trying new songs and different passages.
They played perfectly: The mostly inconspicuous, but wonderfully precise John Convertino on drums, with his concentrated facial expression, the excellent guitarist and vocalist Joey Burns, the German Volker Zander on bass, guitarist Paul Niehaus, the guy-next-door, who was also wonderful at the pedal steel guitar, the multi-instrumentalist Martin Wenk, again a Germany guy, who played Accordion, keyboards, trumpet, vibraphone and finally the trumpeter Jacob Valenzuela with his great voice plus a guest musician who played another guitar and supports the band with his vocals.
Almost 45 minute encores and sentences like "We love to be in San Francisco" caused calls from the audience like "Come back soon and do not let us wait another three years!" Excited applause guided them off the stage.
After the fiesta, the Fillmore was closed soon - the visitors were woo’d with free posters out of the doors. And "Calexico" only stay for a short, late dinner, because the tour bus was waiting outside to bring them to Los Angeles.
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