Where Rodrigo y Gabriela Blow Our Mind

Seattlest has been making some semblance of a living writing about music for a few years now. During that time, we've tried to put into words performances by some truly great artists (Chris Thile comes to mind), and it never gets easier to verbalize music. Talking about music really is like dancing about architecture, although we have felt the inexplicable desire to dance inside extraordinary buildings before.

Our point is that we headed off to the Rodrigo y Gabriela show last night, notebook in hand, ready to take enough notes to give you all an adequate estimation of what it's like to stand against the stage and look up at these two innovative flamenco guitarists. We had good intentions, really. And then they started playing, and then our mind was blown. So being that we don't have any real notes to share, we'll try writing from memory (thank God we were sober and fairly well-rested). Here goes:

At first glance, honestly, Rodrigo y Gabriela aren't much different from your average Latin guitar players. One of them keeps the strummy rhythms, bass lines and beats against their guitar in lieu of using actual drums. The other skates up and down the fretboard at speeds so fast that their hands are blurred in pictures. The difference between them and the Gypsy Kings, for example, is that there are only two of them, they're young and hot, they have an extraordinary, electrifying stage presence, and they've clearly spent a lot of time listening to Pink Floyd and Black Sabbath.

Gabriela was the one that most impressed us. Maybe we're jaded by lightning-fast guitar pickers due to our overexposure to bluegrass music. Don't get us wrong, Rodrigo is a phenomenal player. We particularly loved the part when he left the fretboard altogether, and fingered notes over the sound hole. That was nice use of the instrument.

Meanwhile, Gabriela was working every square inch of her guitar for the entire show. If she dulled the strings on the fretboard and smacked them over the sound hole, she got a nice booming bass drum pop. If she did the same thing at the top of the sound hole, near where the fretboard ends, it was almost like a dull snare. Tapping against the pick guard with her fingertips like a masterful tabla player, she manages to get super-fast syncopated rhythms going. And, every now and then, she'll strum against Rodrigo's meandering melody lines, emphasizing a shift in rhythm or tempo.

For her big fiery solo, Rodrigo flips his guitar on its back, lays it on his lap, and scratches his pick up and down, against the thin grooves on the A-string. It's about this point when we start realizing they're so much more than great Latin guitarists. The word "instrumentalist" comes to mind in a way in which we've never truly understood the meaning before. The musical equivalent of a hunter finding use for every part of his prey.

By the time Rodrigo gets up to lead the crowd in a syncopated clap along, dividing the room into three different percussive roles, we're done. We're in sweet, echoic, rhythmic, musical love. The end.