Venue: Torrington Arms P.H. Date: Saturday 22nd September 2001

The Torrington is one of North London’s favourite venues, putting on an excellent variety of high quality bands for many years. The pub itself has a very welcoming atmosphere, serving good beer with a reasonable selection food available most of the time. The staff are friendly and the loos are clean!

Within easy walk of Finchley Central tube and local busses. Check Torrington website

The club at the back is an intimate venue. It has hosted some great gigs and famous names over the years and is as popular today as ever, especially with blues/R ’n’ B fans. Check out their web site for details of forthcoming gigs.

I was asked at short notice if I fancied popping up to the Torrington to see Viva Santana, and I’m so glad I went – cheers Bill! As a Santana fan of many years, I was curious to see if anyone could actually recreate the famous Carlos Santana band sound. I was very pleasantly surprised.

When I entered the club and saw the small stage full – even without band members – I knew I was in for a treat. Of course this was to be expected if any sound resembling the great man were to be achieved. There were backdrops scattered around the surrounding walls, depicting various Santana related images including the wonderful “Mumbo Jumbo” painting.

The band came on at around 21:15, to expectant applause. They went straight into an intro of guitars and drums, and started the set “proper” with a good rendition of Da Le Yaleo, from Carlos’ current multi million seller “Supernatural”. This showed the band starting as they clearly intended to carry on, in other words they rocked, they boogied and generally kicked ass!

There were seven members in the band when I saw them, although according to their web site (which is worth a visit) this can vary. There were two frontmen, one of whom was the lead guitarist and singer. The other played percussion – timbales, bongos, bells, shakers, guiro you name it – he also sang backing vocal and great lead on many occasions.

As one would expect the heart of this band is the rhythm, so there was another percussionist tucked away in the wings. He played conga, quinto and tumbadora (or congas if you prefer) as well as bongos, timbales, bells, shakers and shouting.

The second guitar player mainly stuck to playing rhythm superbly, and sang backing vocals. The solid combination of 5 string bass and an outstanding drummer (who looked a bit like Graham Lear) kept the guys together whilst the superb (I’m running out of superlatives already) keyboard player completed the band with sweeping Hammond organ and piano.

To my ears the lead player recreated the exact sound of Carlos, ably assisted by his PRS Santana guitar and Mesa Boogie amp. These are the weapons of choice for Carlos himself, with effects including the ubiquitous wah peddle. He also played la guitara Española on such songs as Africa Bamba.

He played extremely well, from the tenderness of Samba Pa Ti and Europa to the soaring solos of Black Magic Woman and She’s Not There. Spot on. His vocals were powerful and confident, he’s obviously no stranger to the stage. I may be wrong, but it was a pleasant change to hear these songs sung properly, by people who looked like they actually understood the Spanish lyrics. Maybe it’s just me but that made a difference!

The same could be said of the second singer, who when not playing percussion full time, got the crowd going with fine vocals on Maria Maria and Smooth amongst others.

All the expected favourites were played, although as far as I can remember (and no webmaster, I was not drunk) they didn’t play anything from Zebop. This was probably down to the time limits, I’m sure they could throw in American Gypsy or I Love You Much Too Much with ease if they wanted to.

The atmosphere was great in this intimate venue - probably helped by the fact that the band made it clear that they were there to have fun, which I’m sure they did. They played two sets of one hour, with a short break in the middle. This is nice in a small venue, allowing performers and punters to chat and buy a beer at half time..

In the second set, they really got us going, with most people taking to their feet. After all, with all that lovely music and percussion going on how could any sane person sit down? They played as many classic Santana numbers as they could fit into two hours, and we really didn’t want them to stop after that. They played a great encore of an extended Jingo, solos and all.

If you are a fan of Santana, or Latin influenced rock music, then a night out in the company of this band is for you. If you are not particularly a Santana fan, but like to see talented musicians performing live and have a dance at the same time, then this band is definitely for you.

My personal rating of Viva Santana on a scale of 1 to 10, is 25. Highly recommended - and I’m fussy! Without a doubt one of the best groups around. The tag of “tribute band” doesn’t do them justice.

They are apparently based in and around St Albans, but will hopefully be coming down the road to north London again very soon. Check out their web site www.vivasantana.com for further details, photos, biographies and other information.

Doug Witney
This review first appeared on The Dance Zone website.

Note - since this review, Viva Santana have returned to completely sell out The Worcester Park Club and The Torrington - book early for the next time!