Gipsy Kings: Pure Passion Rules Night

One would need to have been a seriously dead person to have been unmoved by the Gipsy Kings’ fiery performance Saturday evening at the Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre. Music just doesn’t get much more passionate than the songs and instrumentals played by the seven singing, flamenco-strumming, hand-clapping brothers and cousins who form the group.

It’s been five years since the Gipsy Kings first toured the United States on the heels of their international dance hit “Bamboleo.” Their Southern California appearance then at the Hollywood Palladium was nothing short of astounding, introducing their fresh, emotive blend of Gypsy flamenco and world beat to an audience that was up and dancing from the first guitar strum.

Things warmed up a bit slower at the Meadows--it wasn’t until the seventh song (of 19), the rousing “Djobi Djoba,” that the two-thirds capacity audience was up and dancing. Still, while the novelty of first hearing this music may have worn off, it remained a revelation.

While it owes a nod to salsa and to black dance music styles, the Gipsy King’s music is rooted in the Gypsy tradition, with driving massed flamenco guitars, heated improvisational passages recalling the late Gypsy jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt, and a pealing, highly melismatic vocal style that hearkens back to the Gypsy peoples’ roots in Northern India.

Though the group meshes in a familial fabric, it has a pair of standout talents in lead singer Nicolas Reyes and lead guitarist Tonino Baliardo. In both the sheer power and infinitely shaded semi-tone finesse of his singing, Reyes’ only contemporary peer may be the Pakistani Sufi devotional singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. But where Khan’s vocals aim heavenwards, Reyes’ rough-sawn words are heavy with the passions and sorrows of life.

His voice swirls about more than aromatic campfire smoke does. It’s thicker than a Tabasco-soaked oyster lodged in the throat. It’s able to leap tall buildings.

Guitarist Baliardo, meanwhile, evokes more feeling and power with his lone nylon-stringed instrument than any wall of Marshall amps and effects racks could hope to utter. The speed and fire of his spider-like finger-picking is nothing short of amazing. And even when the group’s music reached a riotous intensity Saturday, with the dancing audience all joining in double-time clapping, he still was introducing intricate, subtle surprises to his playing.

Combined with their brothers’ efforts, that makes for some overwhelmingly passionate stuff, Jack.

Early in the show, though, all that threatened to be overwhelmed itself by a sound mix that emphasized distorted low notes from the backing group’s bass guitar, synthesizer and bass drum. While the mix improved slightly as the evening progressed, what really bridged the sound deficiencies was the growing intensity of the performance.

The two-hour show roamed through the Kings’ three hybrid albums (with scant attention paid to their pre-fame all-acoustic albums). Interspersed with several Baliardo instrumentals, the songs included “Oh Mai” and “Baila Me” from the current “Este Mundo” album, the rousing version of “Volare” from “Mosaique,” and “Quiero Saber,” “Bamboleo “ and the unguardedly romantic “Un Amor” from the U.S. debut “Gipsy Kings.”

Some old fans of the group have decried its reliance on a modern rhythm section, and its overemphasis in the sound mix made one wish that at least a portion of the show be delivered by just the seven Kings performing acoustically. But though the mix may have been intrusive, the actual music of the rhythm section was anything but. Rather, it usually provided a responsive and propulsive adjunct to the group’s guitars and hand claps.

That was most apparent during a rampaging version of “Bem Bem, Maria” as wild, anarchic drum breaks further spiced multiple guitar rhythms that already were flashing against each other like saber sparks.

While Reyes’ voice was a powerful motor for that song as well, his finest moments came in his ballads. The standout song of the evening was “Trista Pena” from “Mosaique,” when his haunting, captivating vocal was breathtakingly sorrow-laden, even for those of us who didn’t understand a word of the lyrics.