14-12-2008 Gabriel Rios

Date: 14-12-2007; Venue: Bibelot Dordrecht(Netherlands)
By: Elvira  Visser

Gabriel Rios is a Puerto Rico guy, but   living in Belgium after he found some
love. Inspired from the Spanish salsa and the new influences from Belgium such as Deus and Zita Swoon and the tapes his father had sent him he started to work with Jo Bogaert and created the final Gabriel Rios style.
 

The venue was nicely filled with people from all over the Netherlands because
Mr. Gabriel does not bring that many visits to the Netherlands. Since his big
hit “Broad Daylight” people appreciate his music and take the chance
to see him perform. On his myspace you can see that he got inspired by romantic salsa and reggaeton. For me, I would expect Gabriel Rios more at a nice festival in the sunshine with some sangria.

  He has a whole band with him, which is a little hidden in the dark back of
  the stage. Of course the gig is about him and not his band but I would have
  liked it if the girl that was singing would have come forward and maybe interact
  with Gabriel. People around me did not seem to mind this and liked to performance.
  Gabriel is quite a small guy, although he stands there in the middle attracting
  most attention, it seems that he makes little dances with his guitar. He does
  not bore you while watching. He pulls different faces while singing and you
  see he sings with his heart. Every now and then the Spanish salsa is introduced
  and it is hard to stand still on your spot. People start to dance and move and
  seem to enjoy themselves. His music gets a little more danceable because of
  the electric beats they are using. It is fun to see that people start to move
  a little more when he sings in Spanish and sing along when he sings in English.

  He started the gig with “Baby Lone Star” and sing mostly in English.
  To get the people enjoy the evening, he tells the audience that sometimes he
  just ask people to clap and keep clapping. Some of the women in the crowd listen
  to him and accompany him with clapping while he sings one of his new songs.
  Towards the end of his performance he sings more songs in Spanish and also after
  the encore he end with: “Papo”, “La Plena”, “Santera”
  and the final song this evening was “Wish”.
  A really nice salsa evening with a crowd which was quite enjoying this.

 
 
  More pictures can be found at photographicretentions.nl