Santana

It wasn’t so much that it was raining in Marlay Park tonight. It was more like a blanket of thick, grey, cloud had descended on everyone, enveloping the otherwise beautiful parkland in a soggy, dank, mist.

You can’t blame Carlos Santana for that. But he certainly must take some of the blame for the paucity of thrills in tonight’s show.

I used to be a fan of his stuff – sort of. But those songs I remembered from the Greatest Hits were nowhere to be heard. No ‘Black Magic Woman’, no ‘She’s Not There’, ‘Samba Pa Ti’ or ‘Europa’. Instead, we were served up new age Latino fusion like ‘Day of Celebration’, ‘Put Your Lights On’ and ‘Maria Maria’ from his recent multiple Grammy winner, Supernatural. Every number, it seemed was elongated to the max with never-ending congas, bongos and call and response guff. Inevitably, it was ‘Smooth’, the recent big hit, that elicited the most enthusiastic response.

A drum solo and a “slap” bass solo did it for me! By the time of the first encore I could take no more.

On the long walk back to the car-park I could hear a couple of earlier Santana classics, ‘Oye Como Va’ and ‘Jingo’. But for me it was way too little, way too late.