Calexico’s atmospheric music captivated the audience
The YleX tent seemed half empty just a moment before Calexico’s show, but the eccentric ambience emanating from the tent sucked in a whole crowd of people once the band had started playing.
Calexico started off with rather basic rumble but soon moved to whole different spheres. The fact that the band originates from Tucson, Arizona, near the United States-Mexico border, is quite evident in their music. The moods ranged from Mexican soundscapes through westerns and waltz to that cornerstone of American music, country.
Jacob Valenzuela’s and Martin Wenk’s exquisite trumpet melodies played the main role in many of the Mexican-spirited songs. Valenzuela and Wenk both are proper jacks-of-all-trades, they also sang and their selection of instruments included marimba, accordion, keyboards and percussions in addition to the trumpets.
The band’s first ever performance in Finland was very intimate, they hardly even used the whole of the stage, but that didn’t matter, for excessive running and jumping around wouldn’t have fit the atmosphere of the music anyway. The stream-of-consciousness in black and white that flowed from the video screens accentuated nicely the feelings created by the music.
In addition to their own songs, Calexico covered Alone Again Or by Love. The band finished off their show with The Crystal Frontier that left the audience craving for more. Regardless of long ovations and loud cheering, Calexico never returned on the stage for an korpi-encore.
Text: Tuomas Vitikainen
Translation: Jari Rytkönen
Pictures: Markus Korpi-Hallila