Buena Vista Social Club

The Buena Vista Social Club is not so much of a band, but rather a celebration of famous Cuban musicians and the music that they play. They were essentially discovered by the American guitarist Ry Cooder in the mid 1990’s and brought to the attention of the world with the album of the same name, Buena Vista Social Club.

Over the years since I have owned that album; some of the noted members of the original incarnation have passed away, including Company Sequndo, Ruben Gonzalez and Ibrahim Ferrer. Despite these deaths, the ensemble continues to tour to this day and last night they played at the Hammersmith Apollo.

They were incredible, simply incredible.

My parents had been to see them play last week in Manchester and after my dad spent ages enthusing over their performance to me down the phone, I managed to get a ticket for the show last night. I really enjoy going to the Hammersmith Apollo, I’ve never seen a bad gig there - the atmosphere is always good.

There was a real mix of people there last night, not the usual gig going crowd for Ryan Adams, Sheryl Crow or the Dandy Warhols, but a cross section of Spanish, Latin Americans, young and old. After a quick set by the support act to get everyone going, the main event started at about 7.45pm.

As the band walked onto stage, the blind double bass player was helped to his instrument and then they started. Two hours flew by as they went from song to song. All the chit chat between the songs was in Spanish and atmosphere was electric. It was as if they were having their own private party to which the crowd was invited. As band members played a solo piece, they hugged and congratulated each other as they finished as the crowd cheered and hollered.

Once they had finished, they came back out for an encore for about ten minutes and then they were done, with huge applause for every one of the thirteen people, with the loudest for the oldest and original members still playing.

I took some very amateurish video -

They still have some dates left on their tour and I heartedly recommend going to see them if you can, you will not regret it - and you’ll be seeing some living legends doing what they do best.