Yesterday evening I went to Fabrica, an old factory near Carol Park turned into a club, to listen to Al Jawala’s music.
I have to say I’m a recent fan of the balkan beats they are sporting mixed with some jazzy tunes. My girlfriend passed one of their songs, “Lost in Manele” I think, and I actually fell in love because I like both real gipsy music (not that crap extremely popular nowadays in Romania) and jazz. Actually, why don’t you check out their MySpace page, listen to a couple of songs and then come back here? It’s pretty hard to describe their music in a couple of words other than “fantastic”.
The show was supposed to start at 8pm, but I wanted to get there a bit early so I could take some photos. Unfortunately, I was told that at 7:40, when I got there, there was a private press conference, but it was due to finish in about 20 minutes. I roamed around, trying to kill some time and still get a place near the stage but the conference started half an hour later and finished somewhere around 8:30. At 9pm the club was starting to get crowded, but we still weren’t allowed to enter the stage room.
I was a bit surprised because of the admission tickets. That’s because they weren’t there for a concert (at least that’s what the posters said) but for their first album launch in Romania. Anyway, I had to pay around 8 Euros to get in. And then we had to wait till 10pm until Steffi, Krischan, Daniel P., Markus (the same Markus from Urma) and Daniel V. went on the stage together with Mani Gutau from Urma.
Mani Gutau said a couple of words thanking Orange (it seems that Orange likes great music), BOSE for their sound system (the sound was perfect) and Fabrica or their support.
Everybody around me was expecting Al Jawala to sing a couple of songs and then split. Boy they were wrong! The concert, because anything almost 2 hours long is a concert, was absolutely fantastic. Thanks to my Nikon I was able to get a place in the front row, a lot better than some professional photographers, basically next to Steffi, so I “felt” the concert as if they were playing just for me.
How was the concert? Well, let me tell you this: you must go to a Al Jawala concert. They didn’t have fireworks, special light effects or anything. It’s their live sound: it’s magic, powerful and vibrant. Al Jawala really succeeded in their quest to mix the gipsy joie de vivre so pregnant in their music, the nightmarish sounds of the didgeridoo and the the artsy sounds of the saxophone.
From what I remember, they played Toulose, Microbuzele, Nortwint, Bate vintul, Again, Fonky, Stufstock, Lost in Manele and a couple more songs that I didn’t recognize.
The show finished at midnight. There were three encores and the crowd was still hungry for some more and were cheering them for a couple of minutes although everybody knew that the concert was over.
From what I’ve heard, they’ll be back in October. I’ll be waiting for them. Until then, you could see a couple of pictures of Al Jawala on my Flickr account.
foarte fain, într-adevăr genul de muzică ce-mi dă furnicături. din ce povesteşti tu aici pare să fi fost foarte fain.
păcat c-am aflat după… (încep să cred că devine un obicei :D)
As dori daca se poate sa intru in posesia fotografiilor pe care le-ati facut in seara de 2 februarie. Propun un schimb avantaos, anume va pot oferi albumele formatiei pe care se pare ca o apreciati.
Numai bine si ma bucur ca acel eveniment v-a placut atat de mult.
Mani Gutau
Catapulta Records
Are we going pro? :D
Nu încă :) Însă se anunţă un al doilea card de memorie pentru aparatul foto.
La concert am făcut poze cu 50mm/f1.8-ul meu care nu are autofocus şi o groază de poze au fost focalizate prost (era totuşi semi-întuneric şi n-am avut neobrăzarea să fac poze cu blitz-ul din doi paşi doar ca să fac poze cu obiectivul cu autofocus) şi pe la jumătatea concertului am rămas fără spaţiu pe cardul de 1 GB.
Însă domnul Gutau s-ar putea să mă aibă de client de acum încolo pentru că cele două albume luate de la Catapulta Records, Trend Off şi Lost in Manele, sunt tare faine şi o să mai caut formaţii care colaborează cu CR :)
so we’re going pro :P
si mie mi-a placut la fel de mult. :D
[...] mai recent omul din spatele Catapulta Records. El mi-a propus să-i ofer pozele făcute de mine la concertul de lansare Al Jawala în schimbul unor [...]