First of all, I wanna say, that the following review I wanna dedicate to Dennis. Without his help, it maybe wouldn't have been possible.
One more time Carlos Santana with his colourful troups is in town, almost sold out , same venue as the Eagles who played two days ago. We've gonne back to normal, what's up to the arena  - with no seated places again. 
Oh yes, Salvatore Santana, - the so called next generation, does the supportslot with his young band. And the music these kids make, is similar to their look. Hip Hop  with some latino tunes rapped into pieces. Not quite my cup of tea, but that's a matter of taste. But Carlos son trys very hard to step into his fathers footprints, at least what's up to the popularity. In the end I am not sure, whether the audiance clap their hands purely out of politeness or they honestly like this kind of stuff. Salvatore plays the keyboard and not the guitar like his dad, and he takes over the vocals occassionally, sharing it with a really talented female singer, - very young of age. At one point even daddy steps on stage to help his youngster for a few tunes, and yes the knot gets untied with two Santanas on stage, and Salvatore last but not least gets his devotion.
                                       
Carlos Santana, Woodstock Legend & style icon can look back on a carriere of about 40 years, 60 Mill. sold records and over 30 Mill. fans in the live audiance. Tonight there is something rather interesting to watch. Because you can oviously realize, that the motion goes backwards - or back to the roots, if you want so. For a very long time the mexican born american citizen had vanished from the scene after the huge success in the Seventies. And nobody asked for him until five years ago, when he came back again with a new idea and the album 'Supernatural'. On this CD he recorded more or less popmusic with various, mainly young musicians and shot up again to huge fame. With one more album after this one, he followed the same direction not quite as successful but still pretty well going. And now there is even one more longplayer out named 'All That I Am'- When you listen carefully to that one, you will discover, that Carlos is slowly driving backwards to where he started from. And live on stage he is doing the same thing. Going back to these beautiful latin rhythm. In the beginning fans are sort of irritated, because there are a lot of youngsters in the audiance, who were not even born at Woodstock times, and they know Santana only from the 'Supernatural' Cd onwards. And that's what they are there for.  

Wrong! The boss is enjoying himself much more to the salsa and rumba tunes and his typical Gypsy suite guitar solos, whereby in the first half of the set, he prefers some not so familiar songs. Let's say, not so well known for the average musiclover. He just can't deny his roots completely, he doesn't want to and most of all his love for the latin feeling. Thanks god, there are enough freaks of the older generation in the audiance, who love the slight return of those tendences. for some kids it is simply too much and too  high, and they leave early. Either because it doesn't match their tastes or  it simply goes beyond their horizons. 
Santana's musicians are almost the same from the last tour, most of all Dennis Chambers on drums, who has also got a pretty well doing solo carriere, but is a member of the Santana band for many years. When he starts playing,- the drumkit is dancing tscha tscha tscha and sparkle is spreading all over the place. I'd call him a heavily explosion, even he doesn't look like it, but rather seems to be a cuddly teddybear. Believe it or not. This man is known as one of the best drummer in the musicbiz. 

Another guy to mention is singer Andy Vargas, a very talented young guy, who is in Santana's Liveband since 'Supernatural' Raul Rekow on Congas and percussion and Chester thompson on keyboard... but over all they are all together worldclass musicians. Carlos would'nt employ any other than those, would he?!
'Samba Pa Ti' is the turning point and people hang loose and get enthusiastic. The venue starts boiling, and the band continues with 'Jingo' and 'Black Magic Woman'. By the way at this point I wanna help out of your musical disknowledge and just mention, that the famous Black Magic Woman is not an original Santana tunes but was written by Peter Green for Fleetwood Mac. Did you know that. I bet, some of you didn't?!!!

’Oye Como Va’  comes next, and last but not least the no.1 Hitsingle 'Smooth' which is a must from the Supernatural album. In the end Carlos says some words to the audiance: "we are not George Bush, we are one unit, we are one family." And he gives us a slight idea about his political tendences. But this is something I can't stand. Politics should be kept in politics and shouldn't be transfered on an entertainment stage, amen.  He further reminds us of Jimi Hendrix, Bob Marley, Mutter Theresa and Martin Luther King. "We wish you peace, freedom and pleasure", Carlos continues. And there it is again, the old Woodstock feeling. The question is only, does the young generation catch up with that? 

Santana still profits from his huge success from the last 3 albums. But going slowly back now to where he came out from.... I don't know, whether he does himself a favour by that.  Over all it still is a high class performance, and every fan of southamerican rhythm and styly is happy and satisfied. 'Evil Ways and 'Love Surpreme' make the end of this 2 1/2 hour show. No more encore. That's it. And we luv'd it.... 

                                                                                       http://www.santana.com/

                                                         


And like I mentioned in the beginning,thank you Dennis for
 helping me out to be able to write this review here.
Promise you, I buy you a drink next time.

<<< click pic for his website.