The venue: the Paramount Theater in Seattle is a national landmark. A great venue for the Gipsy Kings. Capacity about 2500 or so, and it was just about sold out.

The intro was done by Peter (? black frame glasses, full head of medium-long gray hair). The band looked absolutely great, everybody in black shirts, black pants, and black shoes except for Nico, who was wearing bluejeans. There was a lot of camaraderie among the band members during the show. Nico introduced several songs and asked the audience how they were doing, etc. A nice touch I haven't seen him do with a really large crowd.

I recognized the drummer, Stephan Lambate (personally, I think he does a pretty good job. Of course, no one has been equal to Negrito). The bass player and keyboard player are new to me. (Personally, I liked Xavier better. And those leather pants drove the ladies wild!!)

First set playlist:

1. La Tounga - Nico
2. A new rumba by Tonino. I say this because I played every single one of his songs that I have and didn't recognize it. It has a beat very similar to Rumba Caliente (from his solo CD), and Pacheco gets to show off some.
3. Hacemos el amor - Andre
4. Llevame el compas - Nico. A couple of times Paul showed off his prowess by doing some rasgueado (strumming) work.
5. A variation on an unrecorded song by Canut. Several listmembers will remember from a number of years ago that Canut did a song we ended up calling the Tiki-tiki song, because those words were repeated over and over in the refrain. That song started out with "A tiki-tiki-tiki-tiki-tiki" followed by two heavy drum beats. This one didn't (Tonino played an intro), but the refrain had tiki-tiki-tiki in it. [Maybe this is old news by now. If it is, lo siento.]
6. Guaranga - Tonino. This is one of my favorite songs on the Pasajero CD.
7. Un amor - Nico
8. Montana - Canut
9. Pasajero - Andre
10. Yo vi, yo va - Canut

The first set lasted about 45 minutes or so. The sound was really excellent. During the intermission I told the sound guys they were doing a great job.

Second set playlist:

1. A slow song by Nico that hasn't been recorded, but has been played in concert starting at least 3 years ago (that's the last time I heard it). It starts out with a guitar intro by Tonino accompanied by Nico doing some palmas, and it's got a bunch of li-li-li-li in it. Couldn't quite catch the lyrics, but one line in the middle was "Me tengo que morir".
2. Sol y luna - Canut
3. Tampa - Tonino
4. Si tu me quieres - Nico
5. La Dona - Andre
6. Como siento yo - Nico and Andre. This was a very nice duet, and everybody else left the stage for it.
7. Tristessa - Andre
8. Sabroso - Tonino. Drum, bass, and conga solos, which meant you knew the end was near.
9. I will fly - Nico (I will never understand why this is so popular)
10. Encore: Bamboleo

There were some decent piano solos here and there.

Derek