La Barranca @ Voilá Acoustique/Antara Polanco, México D.F.
Stream – ‘Ala de cuervo’
I heard about this place before, but I’ve never been to it. Voilá Acoustique, a gig venue inside one of Mexico City’s most exclusive malls, the sort of where you might run afoul the posh and the upscale, the TV personalities and half of the usual fiends in your newspaper’s society section. Yes, the sort of place that during the Christmas Shopping season, there’s “real snow” falling from the open sky, high-concept architectonic desolation. Succinctly put: a posh place for posh wallets.
It was in such a place that in the night of July 1st, 2011, I broke my gig fasting season (first half of this year). La Barranca, a band that is more vernacular folklore than savage trendy, chose this venue set in “The New Polanco” to reconnect with their audience on a very intimate way.
For those who don’t know the Voilá, imagine the now defunct Mexico City Hard Rock Live, but slightly wider. Now, if you never knew the Hard Rock Live, then imagine a place with two levels, where the lower floor is general access and the upper floor is a semi-circle with tables. Both floors offer perfect visibility and the intimacy experienced is like having the musicians in your living room.
At 10 PM sharp, the doors opened and at 11 PM on the dot, the band came out. I must confess that I was expecting a sort of unplugged gig, especially since the venue’s surname is “Acoustique”. Nothing could be further from the truth. Differing from previous gigs by La Barranca, this was driven by crunching guitars, served in a 2 guitar/bass/drum combo. Those who never are absent, Cecilia Toussaint and Alfonso André, weren’t here this time around. There were no string quartets nor chamber ensembles either. All was held together by heavy guitar strumming that made José Manuel Aguilera’s succulent guitar solos more enjoyable. Yes, guitar solos, that underused resource ignored by so many “boutique bands” polluting our soundwaves.
Aguilera was in good company, with Federico Fong on bass, Navi Naas on drums and Adolfo Romero on guitar, each one strutting their stuff during the 2 hours plus, where each and every song was played with all emotions firmly worn on their sleeves.
A few memorable quotes from that night:
“It’s a pleasure to be with you in this, er, Polanco bar? At least it let’s us be near you” – J.M. Aguilera addressing the public.
“We forget we are in the same situation as 15 years ago and that Peña Nieto is cute…” – J.M. Aguilera before playing Reptil. Translator’s note: Peña Nieto is the governor of the Estate of Mexico. Reptil is a song criticizing politicians.
“This one you should film!” – F. Fong, after it was announced that the video for ‘Ala de cuervo’ would be done my mixing videos from the audience.
“We come from a shire called Coyoacan and it took us 10 minutes to cross the city to get here. Well, 15, 20, 25…” – J.M. Aguilera
Once the gig was finished, the ambient sound was a mix version of ‘Día Negro’, with added Mariachi music, creating a strange contrast of images between the audience and the well dressed people that was starting to queue in the nearby discotheques.
Setlist:
Hasta el fin del mundo
Tal vez ni Dios
Indestructible
Animal en extinción
Destello
El síndrome
Sombras chinas
Corcel
Viento rojo
La fuga de Rubén
Ala de cuervo
Atroz
Flecha
El Alacrán
La rosa
En el fondo de tus sueños
Zafiro
Posiblemente imposible
Denzura
Día negro
Reptil
ENCORE
Paraíso elemental
La lengua del alma
Words: César (“…las serpientes también saben recitar…”)
Translation: Sam.
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