Gotan Project is a French group that blends the sounds of tango and contemporary dance beats. My friend Julia was in love with their music. She introduced me to this band by playing couple of songs on their website. I liked the music too. The sounds of accordion and violin put on top of funky drum beats were quite intriguing.

On October 20, this group performed live at Irving Plaza. We got there by 7:30 PM and there was a pretty long line outside the entrance. At 8:00 PM they opened the doors. The concert hall resembled a night club. There were no seets, just a big dancefloor where people just stood around waiting for the concert to begin. Waiting and waiting and waiting.... The conert did not start until almost 10:20 PM. Someone told me that this is normal for concerts held at Irving Plaza. Even though on the ticket it says "doors open at 8:00 PM" the actual concert does not start until something like 10. Waiting for the beginning of the concert was a pain since there were no places to sit. Julia and two other of her girlfriends found a barrier in the corner on which they managed to sit, while me and another guy were standing all the time.

So at around 10:20 PM the concert finally began. It opened by a movie being projected on a semi-transparent screen behind which the band members could be seen. The movie was just some random shots of typical stuff you can see in dance clubs. They played couple of songs like that and then the screen lifted up. Now we could see a musician sitting behind a a big grand piano, a female vocalist, an accordion player, a guitar player, a violin player and behind them two DJs with some equipment which included two laptop computers and turn tables. All male performers were dressed in suits. It was fun to watch the two DJs popping along to the beat as they pushed various buttons on their gear while the other musicians expressively played their acoustic instruments.

I actually like the stand-up concerts (unless you have to wait for more than two hours) because you can move around during the performance. So we went into the back next to the bar and found a couple dancing tango. A woman approached me and asked me if I did the tango. So we danced for a while along with the other couple as the others were watching us forming a circle. This was my first time dancing argentine tango to the music that had so much beat.

All in all the concert was not bad. I wish they started earlier since on a Monday night you don't want to stand too late. We left around 11:45 PM.

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