Diego Agujetas sang on Friday night.

Seeing any Agujetas is a treat, because they are a rare breed - they all channel some kind of frightening, raw energy which seems connected to something of another time. Diego is more suave (softer) than his sister Dolores and his father Maunel. Unfortunately, since he drew a big crowd that filled the peña, the atmosphere was not as good; there were some people there to see the show that I wished would have shut up and been more serious. It seemed like he only started to get going - to really get across the energy, halfway through the second set. He was pretty casual and would make random funny comments between numbers, and once had to spit out a candy in the middle of a song, after the break. He kept trying to leave the stage several times near the end, and his son and various people in the crowd told him to do a little more, and then a little more.

I could sense some serious duende, but felt that it was slightly wasted in that atmosphere and would have been better to see him sing in a private fiesta (which of course is almost always better). His voice had a range of sounds and timbres which are not really known to other western types of singing. This happens with good flamenco singers, but you feel it especially with the Agujetas. It made me think of his father who was illiterate by choice or rebellion or whatever - if one cannot depend on reading and writing for communication, how much more expressive the voice might become. Well, this is also carried down in the family, from ancient traditions when there was no other way to entertain oneself or escape from reality, except to gather and sing. It connects to storytelling, for me; I got a sense of that when he sang.