Flamenco in Oudenaarde

Flamenco is a Spanish music genre, originally created by Andalusian gypsies, that many of us, tens of millions really, like you and I love to our heart. I often enjoyed the music on radio, movies or CDs but never had the opportunity to watch a live performance. Until yesterday. A group of five artists, from Sevilla itself, going with the name of DOS, were here yesterday in our home town of Oudenaarde, East Flanders. By the way, "coming from Flanders" is translated in Spanish as Flamenco, because native Spaniards believed that gypsies arrived in Andalusia from Flanders... In all honesty, I haven't met that many gypsies in Flanders in more than 30 years!

I coudn't resist using my iPhone and live record a tune or two. I loved one song in particular, and had I been much younger, I might have danced on my chair and shout Olé with the rest of the crowd. With the spouse next to me though, who would dare do such a thing... Whatever! Here it is for you to enjoy too. Has got something to do with 'Vida' (life), I think, and I would appreciate if someone recognized the lyrics and post them here as comments. It really sounds so cool that song!

Anyway, there's no way to describe the virtuosity of the guitar players and the group's couple of flamenco dancers. Simply A-M-A-Z-I-N-G! The two guitar players, El Rizos and Diego Rocha were like from another planet. I had the impression these dudes had at least 8 fingers in each of their hands. Each one played one guitar but you had the impression there was a whole orchestra with at least a dozen guitars on stage. The group's female singer, Carmen Fernandez, sang so typical flamenco and the concert hall was literally shaking from the volume of her voice. You could feel it inside your guts. And then, there were those two flamenco dancers... a couple, Irene Alvarez and Federico Ordonez... What could I add here?! I rather shut my mouth, or I risk to spoil it for y'all.

Would you honestly believe a performance like that could ever have a snowball's chance in hell to take place in our little 'hole' in the middle of nowhere, our very own Oudenaarde of all places? I wouldn't...