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 Entertainment | April 2007 
Immigration Woes Gone, Rodrigo Heads to Seattle
 Victor Balta - Everett Herald
| | The heavy acoustic metal pair of Rodrigo y Sanchez had to cancel shows because of a Homeland Security snag. |
With a new album, a 30-date tour looming, and U.S. immigration authorities giving him a hard time, it's no wonder guitarist Rodrigo Sanchez - half of the heavy acoustic metal duo Rodrigo y Gabriela - chose to retreat to the quiet lakeside town of Patzcuaro in Michoacan, Mexico, earlier this month.
"We just drove about three hours into the country," Sanchez said in a phone interview from his Mexican sanctuary. "It's a beautiful place."
"We are just about to start the tour, so we wanted to take the time to enjoy our freedom."
It was a far cry from the Homeland Security-fueled nightmare that caused the duo to cancel shows in Austin, Atlanta, Nashville and Washington, D.C., in March. Sanchez recounted the ordeal, saying immigration officials told him another person with the same name "was doing some crazy things somewhere in the States." For that, Sanchez was not allowed into the country and shows had to be canceled.
Everything's cleared up now, though, and on Tuesday night the duo will be at The Showbox in Seattle, where just eight months ago they played two nights at Dimitriou's Jazz Alley.
"The places are getting bigger," said Sanchez, who added that it's a double-edged sword. "We are happy to play small places, but in Europe we play places that hold up to 6,000 people, you know? We want to keep it as close and as intimate as we can. We prefer to play in front of 2,000 or 3,000 people, which is still big, but a little bit different."
Another thing that will be different is playing the U.S. festival circuit this spring, including sharing a night with the newly reunited Rage Against the Machine at the Coachella Music Festival in Southern California next weekend.
"That's one of the things that excites me, you know, to be part of that festival," Sanchez said. "For us, it's going to be our first festival. I don't even know what slot we have, but that's cool after doing the European festival circuit a few years in a row - especially that night with Rage."
Rodrigo y Gabriela have generated their own buzz for their unique blend of acoustic metal in which they cover the likes of Led Zeppelin and Metallica with Sanchez's fast-picking fingers coupled with Gabriela Quintero's fast and percussion-heavy rhythm guitar. It's a sound that didn't win over too many fans in their native Mexico City, so the duo decided to move to Dublin in 1999 - and this is where the story gets interesting.
"It was an accident, totally unplanned," Sanchez said.
It, in this case, was the band's growing following in Ireland - where they were more than just another Mexican duo playing heavy metal music on acoustic guitars. They began to pick up gigs at parties and weddings and eventually were asked by their new Irish friend Damien Rice to be his opening act, setting the stage for a significant career ascension.
"We didn't plan anything," Sanchez said. "We just went over there looking for some space on the street to play. We didn't want to record an album; we didn't want to get a manager. We weren't looking for record label at all. It was just an adventure to be backpacking in Europe, you know? It's totally an accident that we are here, but here we are."
Reporter Victor Balta: Victor.A.Balta@gmail.com. |
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