Conga

Last saturday I went to the concert of The Conga Kings at the Lisner Auditorium in GWU. It was my first conga concert and the beat was so addictive! My friend and I couldn't help but stand and dance! meanwhile everyone else was just sitting in their seats, nice and quite listening to the music!

The Conga Kings are an Afro-Cuban 11 piece rumba group with three congueros. Candido Camero was an 85 year old guy and really frail. When he was walking onto the stage, he was using a cane. But then he got behind the congas and he time traveled back maybe 50 years! you can see in the video how playful he got. The other guy Giovanni Hidalgo was also really great - his hands were moving so fast and he played so many different beats. The third guy, Carlos "Patato" Valdes, crowned by Tito Puente as "the greatest conguero alive" unfortunately was sick and someone else played in his stead.

The whole night was actually quite lovely. I went with my friend Juan D. and after concert and dinner, we went out dancing until they threw us out. :-P The funny thing was that once we got to the dancing bar, this group of people just started playing the congas - lets just say that after listening to the "best conga band in th world" we were not that impressed!!

Btw I took this video at the concert.