An Evening with Santana

Although I heard of the Santana concerts when they were announced, I didn't get round to buying tickets till Friday (for the concert on Saturday) - and even then, only via OLX. Unlike other concerts I have been to, the audience was significantly older - and it did feel strange to go to a concert in a stadium that was seating only. With Gautrain's "Big Night Out" promotion, M and I took the Gautrain to Park Station, followed by the metro train to FNB stadium - an arrangement that worked relatively well - and certainly far better than the organisational chaos that was U2.

Embarrassingly, I didn't even know that Johnny Clegg was the opening act for the night, until I saw the T-Shirts for sale. His 1 hour performance was filled with most his well known hits from over the years, that brought the crowd to its feet; and kept them on their feet for most of the concert. It is strange for a performer to end a set with a slow tribute song, but Asimbonanga is not an ordinary slow song and was a perfect ending to a great set (including the projection of the video on the link as the backdrop).

There was a very efficient 25 minute set change-over to Santana, who would go on to play on for just over 2 hours - although his promise of playing until 6am if the audience was up for it did not materialise.The wet weather was not perfect, but as Johnny Clegg commented - the heavens is showing respect for Santana - the rain did stay away for the full duration of the set!

The band lineup, based on the Wikipedia article, is not the current line-up of the older Santana band members, but the earlier band that has seen most of the success in past 10 years or so. Most of the songs were from his recent albums (since I recognised them :), but given the audience reception from the other songs, it was fairly easy to identify some of the older songs! The set had the expected, amazing instrumental pieces - the fusion of rock, jazz, Latin and African rhythms; and much of the crowd was on its feet for most of the concert.

There were a few songs towards the end performed together with Johnny Clegg, both songs from Johnny Clegg with Santana adding guitar or Johnny Clegg contributing vocals to Santana pieces.