Newen Afrobeat are a Fela Kuti inspired 11 piece Afrobeat band from Chile. A local band, that rehearse in my studio and I am friends with are huge fans and so we all traveled up to Madrid (about 4hrs drive if you do not stop), Spain. I had not been to Madrid since 1998! It was hot (38C) when we stepped out of the air conditioned car! We found our apartment where the 7 of us were staying and got some beers and food and headed over to the venue about 2130…
What an awesome club but hardly anyone was there when we arrived. There was a DJ from Chile playing different sorts of songs and scratching and stuff.. It was ok but not really my thing. He finished at 2220 about and I thought they were going to move all his stuff but they did not. The band hit the stage with in 5mins and opened with a religious thing about Jesus, which I was not thrilled about and then went into Coffin for the head of State by Fela.. Great start…. What a great groove and vibe. 4 horn players, two percussion players, drummer, bass, guitar and two female singers, one did 90% of the lead vocals and the other mainly backing vocals. They played most all the tracks from the new album, Grietas. Some just like on the album and others more jammed out. They are very tight and it turns out they all are playing to a click track and with voice cues for certain parts. The horn players and singers did not have in ear monitors but the rest of the band did..
Anyway, they played about 80mins and the 2nd to last or 1st encore song, one of the percussion players took over the lead vocals and the lead singer she switched to percussion. They played at least one more Fela song in the set as well. Everyone was dancing and having a good time. They had a rapper come out for a few minutes on one of the encore songs and the DJ was also scratching and playing with the band… They were having a good time… The band played about 100mins total.. IT was great. We spend quite some time talking with the band afterwards and I got 10 of the 11 of them to sign the new album. Cool.. Sadly, they had been robbed in Lyon France and they stole nearly all their gear and t-shirts and CDs and they only had few vinyls.
Newen Afrobeat- City Square, Guarda, PT 22/07/24
4 nights later, we drive 70mins to Guarda and saw them for free on the local square. We talked to them again and they were happy to see us and cool people. They played some different songs on this night and started with something totally different. They did No agreement by Fela today and not in Madrid. It was a shorter set, only about 80mins and no DJ or rappers. Fanstastic sound and what a great band and nice people….
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| Me and the two female singers after the gig. |
https://newenafrobeat.bandcamp.com/album/grietas
https://www.facebook.com/newen.afrobeat
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