eightball.ie proudly presents Rodrigo y Gabriela

Wednesday, March 29
University Concert Hall

www.rodgab.com

Rodrigo (Sanchez) and Gabriela (Quintero) are two fast-fingered, Dublin-based, Mexicans with a unique sound created on acoustic guitars. Their music is difficult to define, straddling both world and rock, and often imbued with timeless Hispano–classical influences. The fire in it comes from their life-long passion for metal music. Rodrigo is a deft finger-picker who can move from raging speed to sensual soul in the space of a fret, while Gabriela employs fast, rhythmic techniques. Her percussionist’s thrashing of strings and drumming of the instrument’s body inevitably raises comparisons with flamenco – which they acknowledge as an influence but swerve as a pigeonhole.

The duo’s repertoire flies beyond familiar Latin folk guitarists’ styles because of the metal connection: their re-workings of Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven” and Metallica’s “Orion” are musts, and the presence, on “Ixtapa,” of the fiery Hungarian gypsy violinist, Roby Lakatos, is inspirational. Rodrigo and Gabriela met as teenagers, at the Casa de Cultura (Culture House), in Mexico City. In fact, they just hung out with friends and survived by playing bossa novas in the hotel bars.

“Then we decided to travel to Europe.”Their first port of call was Dublin, Ireland. They built a reputation and landed gigs in people’s homes, at wedding parties and gallery openings, playing covers and their own compositions. In winter, they moved to Denmark and started again. Just in time, a call came from Ireland to come back and play the newly opened Sugar Club. Damian Rice, then a busking friend, invited them to support his shows, and in 2003, they released Re-Foc , and a year later, Live Manchester and Dublin , which both launched them onto the World Music circuit – and beyond.

www.myspace.com/rodrigoygabriela

www.rubyworks.com

www.muzu.tv/rodygab