The Gipsy Kings come to Bengaluru Premium

At ZLB 23, the Leela Palace’s recently-opened speakeasy, the Gitano-French band Gipsy Kings regaled their audience with music and memories

The notes of ‘Bamboléo’, one of the most iconic songs of the Gitano-French band Gipsy Kings have barely faded. But the audience gathered at ZLB 23, the Leela Palace’s recently-opened speakeasy, seems to want more. “Again. Play it again,” they call, over the applause.

It has been exactly 35 years since The Gipsy Kings came out with ‘Bamboléo’, but the allure of the song does not die, despite the passing years. “The music industry has changed over 35 years, but one thing does not change for us; we sing with our hearts, our passion,” believes band member Juanito Motos, adding that he firmly believes that this is the secret of the band’s longevity.

“The audience and public know this,” he says, when we meet in Bengaluru, the last city of their week-long India tour. The Gipsy Kings by Diego Baliardo India Tour kicked off on May 31 in Pune and ended with a concert in Bengaluru on June 4, with a pit-stop in Kurla, Mumbai on June 2.

As part of this tour, they also made a surprise stop at the ZLB 23, adding a special twist to its hushed Gatsby-esque atmosphere filled with people in smoking jackets, tuxedos and cocktail dresses, who seemed thrilled to hum along to ‘Baila Me’ and ‘Hotel California’.

“We are really happy to be here in India,” says Motos at the meet-and-greet event at ZLB 23, adding that India is the Gitano people’s ancestral home. “We are very proud to be singing in India because we cannot forget that the first gipsy came from India,” he says. “It is fantastic how so many Indian people know our songs, despite us singing in Spanish. Even those who weren’t born in the 1980s know our songs here.”

According to The Gipsy Kings by Diego Baliardo website, the band began their journey back in 1978 in Southern France, when members of two related families, Baliardo and Reyes, decided to come together to create music. The original band, back then was made up of Nicolas Reyes, Canut Reyes, Patchai Reyes, Andre Reyes, Diego Baliardo, Tonino Baliardo and Paco Baliardo, who sought to preserve their gipsy culture and language, through music. Over the next 40-odd years, the band became intensely popular for the pop-derived rumba flamenco they offered, collaborating with a number of other popular artistes, including Joan Baez, Ruben Blades, Olivia Newton-John and Francis Cabrel.

Today, many of the original members have moved on and started their own Gipsy King bands, incorporating second and third-generation members of the family into these new bands. The source of their rich musical tradition, however, remains the same: family, which is what gipsy music has always been about, as Motos points out. “Our main source of inspiration is our family,” he says. “When we go on stage before a concert, even if they are far away, we always think of them. That is our motivation.”