On Monday night I went to the Santana concert here in Edmonton at Rogers Place with my buddy Buzzard. This was my first time seeing Santana in concert as I'm not really a huge fan of him. I like him but never really had an interest in seeing him live. My buddy talked me into going to the show as he has seen Santana a couple times live and mentioned I really should go. He picked up tickets so now I was committed to going. Buzzard leant me the Carlos Santana autobiography The Universal Tone: Bringing My Story To Light, which was an interesting read and had me looking forward to finally seeing this legendary guitarist.
Santana are on the road now as part of his Divination Tour. This time around Carlos had a eight piece band with him as he always has a revolving door of musicians he plays with. Playing in the band this tour is Andy Vargas and Ray Greene on vocals and horns, three drummers Paoli Mejias, Karl Perazzo and Carlos' wife Cindy Blackman Santana, David K. Mathews on keys, Benny Rietveld on bass, Tommy Anthony on guitar and of course Carlos Santana on guitar., a great bunch of musicians backing him up.
I've always found listening to Santana albums that I would get bored as I always kind of though the songs all started to sound a like. Carlos has a very distinct guitar sound, there always no doubt who is playing when you hear that Santana guitar sound. But in concert, I enjoyed it much more, didn't feel as repetitive. And that was even after a two and quarter hour long show, with no intermission. It was billed as an evening with Santana, so no opening act, but I thought for sure there would be an intermission, but to my surprise there wasn't, which was fine, cause the show actually went by real quick.
The show opened with the song "Soul Sacrifice" in which we missed as we were still in a line up trying to get into this damn venue, still not a fan of Rogers Place. I thought the place would grow on me, but thus far I can say it hasn't. By the time we got in and grabbed a drink and got to our seats Carlos and band were playing the popular song "Evil Ways" which sounded amazing, which segued into the John Coltrane song "A Love Supreme". A half dozen songs into the show the band played what is probably Santana's biggest hit "Black Magic Woman/Gypsy Queen" that really got the crowd of about 6000 up and dancing. The show was full of guitar solos as that is what Carlos is most famous for which included a version of Jimi Hendrix's "Voodoo Child (Slight Return).
For the encore we were treated to a drum solo by Cindy Blackman Santana who could really bang the shit out of her drum set, I'm not one much for drum solos but I thought she did a great job not only on her solo but through out the whole show. Also in the encore was the huge hit for Carlos the song "Smooth" from his 1999 mega album Supernatural. I hated that song, which originally featured Rob Thomas of Matchbox Twenty on vocals, but live with Andy Vargas and Ray Greene doing vocals it actually sounded quite good.
After reading the Carlos Santana book, I was expecting Carlos to really go on about spirituality and such as he is a very spiritual man, he didn't do that and just let the music do the talking which was cool by me. The few spiritual/inspirational messages he did have were on the screen behind him. And at 70 years of age not only does Carlos sound good, but he looks healthy and good too. All and all this show was much better then I had expected. Good times!!!
Santana at Rogers Place in Edmonton.
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