When a band is so versatile, it can effortlessly flow from call-and-response horn-based mariachi to grungy guitar solos building up to instrumental crescendos, to segues into Joy Division’s new wave masterpiece “Love Will Tear Us Apart,” then you know you’ve got something extraordinary.
That describes Calexico’s 90-minute set on Saturday night at the pristine Kav Rakia amphitheater, the new outdoor venue at Park Ariel Sharon, near Ben-Gurion Airport.
The versatile Americana band, founded in Arizona, just keeps getting better, as this – their fourth appearance in Israel in the last 15 years – attested.
Who is in the band?
Led by founders, guitarist/singer Joey Burns and drummer John Covertino, Calexico’s southwestern desert noir soundtrack fit the setting perfectly.
Band members Jacob Valenzuela, Martin Wenk, Sergio Mendoza and Jairo Zavala switched between trumpets, accordions, xylophone bells, percussion and keyboards, providing a magical landscape for the foundation forged by Burns, Covertino, stunning lead guitarist Brian Lopez and stand-up bassist Scott Colberg. You literally didn’t know where to look, there was so much happening onstage sonically and visually.
The sound at Kav Rakia is amazing, the parking effortless and the setting comfortable. Perhaps a little too comfortable, as for the bulk of the show, the near-capacity audience grooving in their seats, despite Calexico making the most danceable music imaginable.
Only when they emerged after the set for a four-song encore (including a rousing version of Love’s 1960s hit “Alone Again Or”) did the crowd get on its feet and begin dancing, to the evident delight of the band.
One attendee accurately described the performance as a “high-end music experience.” That pretty much sums up Calexico’s charm and talent. Don’t miss them if they come back to Israel.