Long-running flamenco act Gipsy Kings took the stage at San Antonio’s Majestic Theatre Friday night and demonstrated precisely why its songs have lingered in our collective memory for 30 years.
Presenting a trademark mix of accessible flamenco, salsa and Catalan rumba, the legacy band’s music led members of the Alamo City audience to sway their hips, ululate and clap along in staccato flamenco style.
As many as nine band members filled the stage, including up to five acoustic guitarists when founder and lead vocalist Nicolas Reyes was playing.
The Gipsy Kings have always been a family affair, starting with Nicolas’ father José Reyes, who played with Nicolas and his brothers. Following the patriarch’s death, the brothers kept playing together across the French countryside and tapping into their gitano — or Spanish Romani — roots.
As a play on their last name, Reyes — which means kings — and a nod to their peripatetic lifestyle, they started calling themselves Gipsy Kings. Another set of brothers, the Baliardos, rounds out the group.
During Friday’s performance, Gipsy Kings played several songs from the self-titled 1987 album that broke the act to an international audience. Those tracks included “Djobi Djoba,” “Un Amor” and, of course, “Bamboleo.”
Nicolas Reyes spoke only in Spanish between songs. Before launching into “Un Amor,” he dedicated the song to his love for the Alamo City audience, exclaiming, “Viva San Antonio!”
Other popular Gipsy Kings tunes, including “Bem Bem Maria,” “Vamos a Bailar” and the group’s rendition of “Volare” filled the set. Noticeably absent, though, was its rendition of “Hotel California,” featured in cult classic film The Big Lebowski.
After the Gipsy Kings closed out the set with “Volare,” the crowd chanted “Otra!” Nicolas Reyes was happy to oblige one last time.
Purists have complained that band’s approach to flamenco is too mainstream, too simplified, too accessible. But multiple Grammys and 42 weeks with the No. 1 world music album on the Billboard charts suggest the music-buying public feels differently.
For the second encore, Nicolas Reyes returned to the stage alone to sing a cappella. Fittingly, the song was “A Mi Manera,” his Spanish rendition of Frank Sinatra’s “My Way.”
