Middle of the road

... or maybe not. This evening's concert by the Paco Carmona trio was advertised as flamenco, but I could tell immediately that it was not. The audience was composed almost entirely of elderly Scandinavians, plus a small fan club at the front shouting "¡ Guapo !" and clapping and cheering. And I could understand nearly all the words, not something that normally happens with flamenco singers. I wondered if I'd made a mistake.

But it's inconceivable that you would play a guitar in public in Andalusia without being good at it, and both guitarists were, especially Ramón Barranquero (on the left here). Spanish musicians are also very good at complex rhythms, which means percussionists have to be on the ball too. And after a series of middle-of-the-road songs they played a long medley of well-known songs which included snatches of Besame Mucho and Dos Gardenias Para Tí, plus a mad drummer solo by the cajón player (brother of Paco Carmona). He was really good; he had drumsticks, but played all his instruments with bare hands most of the time. I really enjoyed this quite long piece, and it made the whole thing worthwhile. The rest of the audience were ecstatic about everything.

It was a busy day -- very satisfactory yoga in the morning, followed by a delicious brunch of eggs Benedict with avocados and the best coffee in town at Cafe Lisboa in La Herradura. And in the afternoon, I went over to Salobreña to meet C for coffee and a catch-up.

Oh, it's also been glorious weather, around 24C and no wind. It was still 23C when I came out of the concert at 8:30 pm, with a warm breeze blowing. S was not so lucky. He flew to Manchester yesterday ... luckily, because the flight arrived in the evening, he'd already decided to stay overnight and drive over to his mum's in the morning. Otherwise he'd have been in a snowdrift on the M62 all night. Even so, a drive that normally takes 2 1/2 hours took him 6 hours today because the M62 was closed and he did some very complicated, albeit scenic, detours ... the A59 was mentioned. He was glad to get there! Roads clear, but it's -2C now, so ice is a distinct possibility.