Grupo Fantasma - Comes Alive

Tour Dates 02/21/08 Chop Suey Seattle, WA 02/22/08 The Waverly Cumberland, BC 02/23/08 Legion Tofino, BC 02/29/08 Engine Room Houston, TX 03/01/08 Hal’s Landing Laredo, TX 03/02/08 Texas State Arts Festival Austin, TX 03/07/08 The Parish Austin, TX 03/09/08 Long Center Austin, TX 03/13/08 SXSW Austin, TX 03/29/08 Lucy’s San Marcos 04/04/08 Brazos Nights Waco, TX 04/12/08 Red River Amp Alexandria, LA 04/19/08 Intern'l Festival Houston, TX 04/20/08 Main St Arts Fest Forth Worth, TX 05/04/08 Jazz & Heritage Fest N Orleans, LA 06/07/08 Telluride Jazz Fest Telluride, CO 06/12/08 Bonnaroo Fest Manchester, TN 09/18/08 Krannert Center  Urbana, IL Album Discography [2001] Grupo Fantasma [2004] Movimiento Popular [2006] Comes Alive Band Members ♥ Kino Rodriguez - vocals ♥Jose Galeano - vocals, timbales ♥Gengee Centeno - saxophones ♥ Adrian Quesada - guitar ♥ Johnny Lopez - drums ♥ Gilbert Elorreaga - trumpet ♥ Beto Martinez - guitar ♥ Greg Gonzalez - bass ♥ Joshua Levy - saxophones ♥ Matthew Holmes - congas ♥ Leo Gauna - trombone

Real Musicians playing real music.

- Prince

That endorsement from Prince made it all worthwhile for the 11 band members of Grupo Fantasma, who's been playing funky latin orchestra music since 2000.

Prince ultimately became a huge fan and invited the band to play for him in London this past August in front of 20,000 people. Then they were asked to appear on Austin City Limits on PBS last November - which I know personally that people saw this show (so it reached a lot of people).

Grupo Fantasma - Mentiras Grupo Fantasma Sounds Like Brownout http://weheartmus... The songs are sequenced in such a masterful way. Clearly extensive time and effort was put into ...

With that said, Grupo Fantasma are currently on tour, and the last CD, Comes Alive, captures one of their exciting and energetic live performance at Antone's Nightclub at their hometown in Austin, Texas.

I like to listen to live albums from the beginning to ending in one sitting, as it's meant to be listened to. I also like a concert to have a lot of interaction (talking to the audiences), but unfortunately this was pretty much a straight show... with the exception of the "introducing the band" that takes place towards the end of the concert.

My one complaint is that they censored any f-words. I can't think of a reason why they want would edit the album, unless this recording must've been originally made for FM radio or sale at Walmart or sensitive listeners? Anyway, they're not that noticeable and it doesn't really distract from the music.

It's about the music, man. They sound like seasoned veterans, each band members adding their distinctive instrument into the live songs. I do have to admit whenever the trumpets is played, wow that instrument overtakes any instruments being played.

If you can't get enough of these latino tunes, check out their side project, Brownout^[W♥M], who's just released their debut album, Homenaje, on January 28th.

PS, in an effort to bring W♥M back to its core root values, I have created a review-only music blog: vhm.vox.com. Please add me to your neighbourhood. I will occassionally post reviews of new music here at W♥M, if I feel the band is truly deserving. Let me know what you think of this? Do you like seeing news and reviews here?

 02/21/2008 08:34:32  vu my♥posts www.grupofantasma.com myspace.com