Went to the Toucan on Saturday night to see Caramelo Son, a nine-piece all-woman band from Cuba. Very crowded and smoky, and most of the audience were the usual Toucan regulars rather than dancers. Which is nice in a way - feels a bit more real - but can make the dancing very tricky as muggles are so unpredictable.
The DJ played a good variety of music, including several I recognised from the NuYorican Funk Experience compilations, but he played some which were far too fast, too early on. Particulary difficult when dancing with a very drunk ******* (name omitted to save embarrassment) though she's still easier to dance with when pissed than a lot of people are when sober! I was surprised at how rough the sound system was.
The band started very wooden but soon warmed up. They did some very long extended songs which was great if you were dancing with the right person, but must have been difficult if you weren't. I had to dance as 'protectively' as possible, particularly as one idiot was waving a lighted cigarette around between eye and arm level next to me at one point. It's hard to relax into the dance when you're spending half your time looking over my shoulder to see if there was space for me to CBL the girl into, Had a couple of really enjoyable dances. One with KatewhospeaksSpanish who's always great to dance with, and another with someone who obviously used to find me difficult to dance with (the feeling was mutual) but whose dancing style I suddenly 'got' a few weeks ago and I find very rewarding to dance with now. I've had the same thing happen with two or three people over the last few months, so I must be making some progress.
No comments:
Post a Comment