Los Coronas [Spain]
As the day faded away and city workers walked down to the botanic park Los Coronas greeted those entering the Frome road gateway into this green zone.
This Tejano (Tex Mex) band channels Californian surf rock with their Latin ranchera trumpet. With lots of reverb, typical of the surf genre this music sounds like it belongs in a classic western or a Tarantino film (yes there was a cover of Miserlou and it was excellent – eat your heart out Black Eyed Peas!).
This is instrumental music where you can lasso yourself a partner, break out your 60’s dance moves and boogie all night. This act was an amazing way to start WOMAD but unfortunately it was their sole performance of the long weekend.
Getting cold? The speakers corner stage has an awesome Chai stall set up right near by!
“What is this Middle Eastern surf band playing”, thought the reminiscent reformed hippie, walking back through Speaker’s Corner after a four-year WOMAD drought.
At 7:30 on the Friday evening of this year’s WOMADelaide, it was actually a band called Los Coronas – “Spanish disco surf style”, as one of the guitarists declared between songs from under one of their trademark cowboy hats. Easy, smooth, and mostly instrumental, the Spanish band was the most classy of wingmen: not only did it coolly introduce festival-goers to a well-earnt weekend, but it also assisted the weekend to seduce them, talked up the weekend’s many positive attributes, and plied the revellers with a couple of drinks (mostly chai) for good measure.
