Villancicos... or not

After the success of the ballet, I thought that going to a Christmas carol concert could be a good idea.  Only another 3€ or so, and all going to charity.  Besides, after singing carols at school every Christmas, and being in a band that went carolling every Christmas, without carols (for me) it doesn't feel like Christmas.  And it seemed like a good chance to experience carols in a Spanish style.

Well.  It certainly was a new experience, I must say.

It was a little bit like those sets of images doing the rounds on facebook at the moment.

What we thought we were getting.

What we actually got.

I conned my flatmates into going, and one commented as we went in that she felt like we had walked into a school concert.  It was almost all family groups, so we felt a bit out of place.

And then it began.  It certainly was a mixed bag.

There were plenty of groups of little ones, who were adorable in their ruffly, spotted, mini flamenco dresses, stomping about to those aggressive flamenco-style carols that only Spain could produce!

What initally looked like a rather sheepish bunch of 8 to 10-year-old kids gave an impressive performance for their age.  A girl of about 8 years took the lead, and what a voice!  Plus, some of boys showed some real rhythm with the characteristic hand-clapping.  They must have grown up tocando palmas.

And then, the crowning glory... the compañeros de Vilches.  This was actually a nice change (at the start) as it was a group of about 15 adult males, and they had various guitar-like, strung instruments, which hadn't appeared so far in the concert.  And their first song was completely different to all of the others we had heard, with a very slow, accentuated beat, and Arabic-sounding trills between notes.
Their second song was just like the first.  And so was the third.
When they finished, everyone clapped for quite a long time.  So they came on and did a fourth.  Guess what it sounded like?  Well, it had a very slow, accentuated beat, and Arabic-sounding trills between notes.

At this stage, we decided we had had our share of villancicos for the day.
Well, at least we have now experienced a (kind of) Spanish carol service.

I just found this... Not at all funny unless you speak Spanish and know the 'Peces en el Rio' villancico.  But, if you do, it really is quite funny!