RETURN OF THE 60S

It was like a bad dress rehearsal, or a day in court with attorneys shuffling reams of paper, walking in and out of the court room, whispering and chatting while someone was trying to speak – disorganized chaos.

The performance, if it can be called that, took place at the Capawalk Theater in Vineyard Haven last Friday evening, 27 April, with the drawing card of a talented flamenco guitarist, Alberto de Almar. But with no movement towards the three guitars sitting on the stage the first half of the program flagged miserably. Bad anagram poetry, clips from videos of other virtuosos, much wandering around by a sound tech, made this ‘multi-media’ event better suited to the 60s psychedelic stony age. The movie screen was alive with rapid-fire kaleidoscopic images, to the point of being frenetic-crawl-out-of-your-skin flashbacks. By mid-point half the audience had left.

There were some moments of musical brilliance from violinist Z, William Waterways on the Native American flute, and finally the guitar was in hand, but not without mechanical difficulties. de Almar is a fine flamenco guitarist with a flare for creativity within the traditional style, but it was too long in coming and by 11 p.m. only a handful of people remained.

It wasn’t the Old Vineyard, but perhaps not the new either.