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Los Van Van were set to play a one-off (I believe) live gig in the UK at The Roundhouse in Camden, London on Saturday 7th March 2009, and I had been looking forward to it for quite some time, as I had never seen them live before.
They are from Cuba and have been around for so long that they have practically become an institution, with many, many CD’s to their name – everyone will recognise some of their songs.
We arrived at the venue at around 9pm, a little later than had been planned (long story involving 3 taxis!!) and met a few friends outside before going in. There were already lots of people outside the venue, and inside was buzzing too with lots of people in the lobby and a huge queue forming for the cloakroom. After collecting our tickets, we made our way straight upstairs, and showed our tickets at the door of the performance room.
It was extremely busy in the main room already, with lots more people there than I remember there being for the Oscar D’Leon gig in the summer last year. Javier was DJing on the stage and people were already dancing. Most people however were already waiting at the front of the stage for the gig to start. This is a great venue for live music, but as I explained in the Oscar D’Leon review, not quite so great for dancing for various different reasons. That wasn’t stopping people from dancing though around the edges of the room, and the atmosphere was already building up.
There were lots of familiar faces around, from all over the UK which was great, so after saying lots of hellos, we got ourselves a drink from the bar and tried to make our way further into the room, and closer to the stage for a better view. Me being slightly vertically challenged makes getting a decent view very difficult to say the least 
The band came on stage at 10pm and did a full 2 hour set without a break, so we certainly got our money’s worth out of them. Once they started everyone moved closer to the front of the stage, but there was still little room left around the edges, as it was a very busy night indeed and many more people had arrived after we had. I tried a few places for a good view, but each time my line of sight was blocked by people taller than me, or people with ‘big hair’ lol.
Eventually, after lots of wandering around, and a couple of dances on the edges by the bar, I finally found a spot right at the front, right-hand side of the stage where I could see everything.
The band were spot on and the sound was fantastic, however something that took the edge off the experience a little for me was the fact that they seemed to be doing a lot of material from their new CD. Understandably, they were wanting to promote this new CD – unfortunately for me, I don’t have it, so most of the tracks were unfamiliar to me. I think out of the whole 2 hours, I only recognised 2-3 of the tracks.
In hindsight I should have bought the CD and had a good listen to it before going to the gig. Sadly, I hadn’t thought that far ahead and for me there didn’t seem to be enough of the old favourites, or if there were, they were more tracks that I didn’t know well enough to recognise. Everyone else seemed to be really enjoying it and getting into the music though, and the atmosphere was electric.
Next time I go to a live gig, I will make sure I am better prepared, as knowing the music makes all the difference between a good night and a fantastic night.
After one encore, the band finally left the stage around 12pm and the DJing started again, and people either started to leave or carried on dancing. Dancing at this point was quite difficult as the floor was littered with empty plastic glasses, and there were lots of puddles of spilt drinks around too.
We left shortly after the show finished, but the room was still pretty full, and it looked like the party wasn’t in danger of ending anytime soon. We opted for heading across to the Salsa Fusion event close-by for the last hour or so for our dancing fix.
I have heard of lot of good things about this event from several people, so have wanted to try it for a long time, and this was my chance. I wasn’t there long enough to warrant a proper review, but I did enjoy it there, and had a few good dances. It had two nice sized rooms playing different music, with large dancefloors in each. There were more people there than I was expecting on account of the Los Van Van gig, though a lot of people were starting to leave as we arrived.
I recognised a few people there, which always makes an event feel more friendly and enjoyable. My only criticisms about my short visit there were that it was very very hot, and the floor felt quite sticky, but the people I went with (who are Salsa Fusion regulars) said the heat and the dodgy floor were both unusual for the venue.
All in all I enjoyed my trip to London for the Los Van Van concert, and am glad I went. I am now looking forward to my next fix of live music....... whenever that may be....... sooner rather than later I hope!
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