Abe-L

Last night, we scooted over to St.Cuthbert's Parish Church, 5 Lothian Rd., Edinburgh to see the famous bassist, Abraham Laboriel play a Festival 'Fringe' gig.

They came on after 22:00, and everything seemed to have gone wrong (well, it was Friday-the-13th!). Midway through the set, the power failed, and we were all plunged into darkness — all the equipment died, except that the drummer carried on… as if it were a scheduled drum solo!

Well, that actually made the night — this guy threw everything into it — and he continued for about a 10 full minutes until the power came back on — and the band just slipped back into the song as if nothing had happened! Wonderful stuff. Fortifying. R was clapping like mad.

Between numbers, Abe informed us that they were all playing loaned instruments and using borrowed equipment — all donated at the last minute because their luggage was lost in the Heathrow backlog.

Poor souls… they have moved mountains just to get to the UK to play this wee gig.

Anyway, Abe slapped and snapped his funky way through a nice tight set, regaled us with stories of his Mexican upbringing and his surprise at the numbers of Spanish speakers in Edinburgh. He sang us a very heartfelt song he'd written at the 'Berkeley School of Music' about his father.

You know, I think we got our money's worth!
Links:
KOINONIA
Abraham Laboriel Web Site
About Abraham Laboriel