Larry Harlow at the Roundhouse on 17th November 2007
Written by Mel C
Friday, 04 January 2008
Steve had
already been speaking to Larry Harlow via email about us interviewing
him, when we found out that he was going to be playing at the Roundhouse
in London, two days before we were due to go to New York to meet him!
Not one to pass up an opportunity, Steve offered to help publicise the
event and we were given two free tickets in exchange. Larry Harlow had
also agreed that we could film one of his songs to put onto the
website, so as you can probably guess, we were very excited!
When we arrived at the Roundhouse, we went to speak to Gerry Lyseight,
one of the events promoters. We explained who we were and that we had
permission to film, Gerry rang Andy Wood and he sent over not only two
press passes but two back stage passes as well!
Gilles Peterson was warming up the crowd with a mixture of Latin music
so after a few hellos to different people, off we went to see if these
passes really would get us back stage! Andy Wood was back stage
chatting to a few people when we first saw Larry Harlow. He was dressed
all in white, had his hair slicked back and looked ready to go!
Now, I don’t normally get tongue tied around ‘famous’ people but
meeting Larry Harlow for the first time completely blew me away. So
much so that I introduced Steve to him as my website not my boyfriend
(Steve found this very funny by the way and still winds me up about it
now!)
Larry was very friendly and took us through to the dressing rooms to
meet the rest of the band, we met Adelberto Santiago, Nicky Marrero and
Luisito Rosario, but the guy who really threw us was Yomo Toro. We
watched as the band went onto the stage, Yomo was wheeled on stage by
an assistant and he sat down very slowly in his seat, when the band
started and it was time for him to play, he totally blew everyone else
off the stage, it was jaw dropping!
There were a lot of salseros out that night and a huge Latino crowd
came to represent and support Larry, which was great to watch. Apart
from meeting the band of course, the highlight of the evening for me
was being the only ‘press’ people behind the barrier, yes, i’m being
smug, but I don’t care, wouldn’t you be?
Steve got some great footage (check out the music section for the video
clips at the Roundhouse) and we got to meet one of the legendary Fania
All Stars (we got to go to his house in Manhattan too but you will have
to read ‘A Salsa Central Week in New York’ for that story!) we were
totally buzzing all the way back to Brum!
