Well, the blog has started getting bombarded by spam comments — recently I’ve had to moderate (aka delete) about 30 every day — so I’ve turned back on the “feature” that requires users to log in before posting comments. Since there are so few legit comments, this shouldn’t affect anyone too much…

On a happier note, my flamenco guitar lessons continue today here in Barcelona. I’ve been practicing non-stop (it seems) since my first lesson on Thursday, after discovering I’ve got to unlearn (thank you Yoda) some bad habits.

Went to see a couple of shows at the Flamenco a Nou Barris festival, including the very famous dancer Antonio Canales (Friday) and Grupo Trevenque Flamenco (Saturday). All the musicians were superb, the singers and dancers too — strangely, the one I was least impressed with was Canales himself. He was technically very precise but his performance had a very strange energy (in fact, at first we wondered if he was drunk, but eventually figured the strangeness must be part of his act). There was no passion in his performance, only a creepy kind of “superstar vibe”; everything was performed with the precision that comes from having performed these dances to perfection for many years — without a connection to the audience, without soul. Without duende, some might say.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 22nd, 2006 at 3h19 and is filed under Music, Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.