Saturday, November 3, 2007

Concert Review: Los Amigos Invisibles

By Todd Maternowski

DALLAS — Since the mid-1990s release of The New Sound of the Venezuelan Gozadera, the Venezuelan latin/funk/disco band's first album, I have had a desperate craving to see Los Amigos Invisibles' live show. Los Amigos is a sound that absolutely has to be heard to be believed: effortlessly melding disco with 70s R&B, funk, modern dance grooves, bossa nova, salsa and merengue, Los Amigos have created a beautiful, catchy sound that is simply impossible not to move to. The six-piece band formed in 1991 was formed as a protest against what they term as "dark rock", against the notion that Venezuelan discotheques must exclusively play salsa/merengue, and, later, against the predictable sound of most World Grooves pseudo-music.

But going in to their show Friday night at the House of Blues' Cambridge Room, I was a little nervous: the crowd was, without exception, comprised of Dallas' snappily-coiffed young elite. A very different crowd from the lobster-red $40,000 millionaire crowd I was used to seeing in Victory Park: my wife and I got the impression that we may have been the only ones in the audience who had not danced the Tango in the streets of Barcelona after a quick visit to the imposing temples of Macchu Picchu with their friends from the editorial staff at Slate. The crowd was mostly latin, with a smattering of half-castes like myself, and I was worried that this too-pretty, too-learned crowd would provide no energy for the band, and just sit on their hands like so many Dallas crowds are infamous for.

Todd Maternowski

Lead singer Julio Briceño and José Rafael Torres on the bajo

As it turns out, I had nothing to worry about: the instant the band took the stage, the crowd shed its literati affectations and transformed into dance-craved, carnal demons of the groove. And who could blame them? Los Amigos opened with "All Day Today," an unquestionably catchy samba, before launching into their devastating array of disco, funk and latin jazz. Discolicious standards like "Cuchi Cuchi" and "Sexy" were well-received, and in the middle of the set, the band broke into a few salsas and the incredible house-fueled merengue, "Ponerte En Cuatro" that had booties shaking and hips breaking all over the dance floor.

While everyone in the packed Cambridge Room was bobbing one or more appendages, a large number of couples broke out into dance --try listening to "Ultra Funk" without succumbing to those infectious rhythms yourself-- despite having less than 3-4 square feet to work with on the dancefloor.

Todd Maternowski

An accidentally-artsy shot

The music is one thing, the band quite another: the second guitarist José Luis Pardo took the stage, massive, curly 'fro swinging and swaying, you got the distinct sense of stepping into a time warp. Bassist José Rafael Torres, on the other side of the stage, had weaved-back hair and looked like he had just walked off the set of a 70s motorcycle cop-themed porn film. Lead singer Julio Briceño --looking amazingly similar to Tony Romo with a mustache-- was wicked slick, filling the room with his youthful latin charm, easy smiles and perfectly-pitched latin-rap style vocals. A special shout-out to drummer Manuel Roura, who had the furious look of an escaped convict all night while keeping the bands' multiple styles firmly in check with precision drumming, and percussionist Mauricio Arcas, who held down the congos and vocals for "Ponerte En Cuatro."

The band member's facial expressions were absolutely priceless, an no matter where you looked, you knew you were in the presence of greatness: the fro'd-up Pardo's face was constantly changing from wild-eyed confusion, to blanked-out thousand-yard stare, to close-eyed orgiastic release and back again. Bassist Torres' wild blond locks and beard were amply accessorized by his hilariously 70s-porn facial expressions that have to been seen to be believed. Hiding in the back, keyboardist Armando Figueredo was a bundle of writhing energy, wildly gyrating to the funkadelic sounds he was helping create. As if the music and crowd weren't enough to overload the senses, the band's sense of showmanship definitely pushed it over the edge.

The band performed an excellent encore that got the entire crowd jumping (could the jive suckas downstairs at the Spoon show feel the roof tearing off, I wonder?), including their disco-flavored merengue (or is it merengue-flavored disco) hit "El Disco Anal." Los Amigos Invisibles, beautifully incorporating the best sounds of the 70s into modern dance and rock en espanol, is not to be missed.

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