LIVE: GUADALUPE PLATA – 15/09/2016

I’m surrounded by lots of exceptionally tall men. A mix of the Irish. And a spattering of Spanish. I wonder if the Spanish and Irish have a general population filled with extremely tall people. It’s making it extremely difficult to see, anything. I couldn’t particularly tell you then exactly what the bands look like, but from Northern Irish support, The Bonnevilles, to the Spanish contingent, Guadalupe Plata, the aliens are definitely here tonight.

The Bonnevilles are shaking the tiles from the roof, and smashing them like they’re Greek. If that works. But nope, they’re definitely Irish as shouts from the crowd sound incoherently, definitely, Irish. Like you know they’re saying something you could understand, but your brain addles it into something completely different. My brain right now though, is definitely saying these are guys that you need to listen to. Never having heard anything by them before, the inherent need to love their energy is contagious. There are wavers, and shakers, and sway-ers in the crowd, and that’s before mesmeric trance-inducing Guadalupe Plata have graced the stage. It could very well all be alcohol-induced though, as the guy next to me with his unbuttoned, hairy-chested swaying bellows to the band for good measure, but hey there couldn’t be the Irish without a little tipple. And alcohol-induced or not, it appears The Bonnevilles have definitely gained a fair few fans tonight.

With that, oozing devilry and hocus pocus, Guadalupe Plata appear and delve into tune after tune without hesitation, bewitching the crowd into a psychedelic state of mind. There are squealing guitars, warbling Spanish, and spells being cast on the crowd. It’s insane to behold and remain conscious, of the skill used to bend and slide strings, and beats and voice into something so completely mesmerising, it blurs. It feels like we may have gone back in time to the free love psychedelia era of the sixties, swaying into the surreal world of our minds. We’re no longer admiring the complex structure of their music, but being taken over by it. Their hypnotising qualities here are amplified by the continuous loop of songs played without respite. It’s moments like these, that you feel spirits will look to take over your soul, and then dare you not to feel mystified by the music.

Undoubtedly it’s been a night of befuddlement, in a good way; within a mind put under a spell, left dazed and in a stupor, leaving The Castle Hotel into the warm night air, bewilders and befuddles. How confusing. Okay then, it’s been a gratifying night of that trance-inducing psychedelic music that you could listen to again, and again, and again. Give my brain a rest.