Art Space was swallowed into a time rift on Wednesday night. The audience could easily have been clustered around the famous Fillmore stage in San Francisco in 1968 watching Santana wail on guitar long before anyone knew he had a first name.
Back then, the legends say, the audiences would sit in silence not out of apathy or rudeness but because they were enthralled and appreciating every buttery note.
The man on the stage in Prince George had an afro and dark skin, spoke charming English through a Spanish accent, wailed on guitar, and as he did on the Canada Winter Games mainstage, he kept the audience glued to the action. He is the modern day Santana from Smithers (by way of hometown Havana), Alex Cuba.
Cuba's power over an audience is a humble one, because he clearly falls under the same spell. He's playing the songs that entangle the listeners, but he's wrapped up in it too. The man is a magnet for music forces - guitar and vocals, melody and rhythm, mature skills and boyish spontaneity - so the audience never feels played at, they feel played for. And the tones of the songs, though most are in Latino tongue, have a singable quality. They trick shy Anglos to forget they don't speak Spanish or dance. They are singing along to sounds they made up as their own facsimiles to Cuba's lyrics, and somehow that is all safe and fair game at an Alex Cuba concert. But it might just inspire some people to learn some Spanish so they know how to sing along authentically.
He also helps the audience learn about themselves. Despite English being his newest language, he mentioned that he has discovered how romantic and passionate Canadians are thanks to the fan comments pouring in about his soft new ballad Contigo.
"You just don't show it," he laughed.
Ouch. But so true. It is through immigrants and artists - he happens to be both! - reinventing our sense of Canadian culture that we old-school Canadians are learning it's OK to cheer and dance and give in to displays of emotion that are not related to a puck going into a net.
Did you know, in most Latin countries, the audience becomes part of the music with all the clapping and chirping going on in the seats? You get a sense of your inner Latino wanting to burst free when Cuba plays infectious tunes like Ni Forma Ni Colores or (my personal favourite song of 2015 so far) Vale Todo, and everyone is finally singing along unabashedly to In 1, 2, 3, 4 when he lets it loose near the end of the night. It is the first single off his new album Healer, and it is destined to be an Alex Cuba standard by the time its run is done.
It will also be a song that gives duet partner David Myles a popularity boost. I hope some audiences get a chance to see the two of them together on it one day, or the other guest singers he has along on this album (Alejandra Ribera, Ron Sexsmith, Kuba Oms and Anya Marina). His band filled in for these absent but acknowledged colleagues, and drew yet another modern parallel to Carlos Santana, who has made a career (more than one, honestly) out of strategic duets.
Cuba also threw in a little Blue Rodeo and a little Michael Jackson to show his inventive sides as well, transforming highly recognizable songs into his own.
Not enough laurels can be hung around the necks of his bandmates. Cuba knows how to assemble a tasty ensemble: bass player Ian Olmstead playing his Jack Casaday signature Epiphone, Cuba on his pair of Gibson guitars (one acousitc, one electric), drummer Jake Jenne (who also has a James Taylor-like singing voice) and percussionist Jose Sanchez.
These guys work for their pesos. On top of their primary instruments they each have to whistle, shaker, clap, tap, and sing on cue. They also burn a lot of energy not playing - that is, they conscientiously withhold from over performing. Many drummers play a boutique concert hall like Art Space as though it were Maple Leaf Gardens. Not these guys. They understand the value of letting their instruments' true voices be heard, not just the same tediously repetitive beats. Each one of these players sacrificed glorious mediocrity in order to serve greatly. But not serve Cuba, for he was one of them, always serving the song itself.
It was a packed room on Wednesday night, after thousands swarmed around the Canada Winter Games outdoor mainstage to see him only a few weeks ago. It's not likely we will see him back around here anytime soon, because Prince George got him with Healer only one day old. Mark the words of every audience member: Healer is going to be the biggest album ever released by a northern B.C. resident. Songs like La Bamba and Oye Como Va (made famous by who else but Santana) have few peers: Spanish songs that catch on in Anglo culture. Healer has a chance to do that. My votes are with Ni Forma Ni Colores and
Vale Todo.
