Etnikafe on DVD

It’s with rather a lot of trepidation that I approach my weekend stint at guest-blogging Wired Temples. After all, I’ve only been a ‘blogger proper’ for, let’s see, three whole days now! Anyway, let me start off slowly and see where that gets me...

Being a long-time Etnika (Malta’s fabulous folk band) fan, I took my mother to watch the latest Etnika concert last August. It was my third time and her first and she is now a convert. At the end of the concert, she was already telling me that she would definitely go next year… and this time, she’d take my dad, a musician himself in the sixties, just like the dad of Etnika’s fronstman Andrew Alamango.

Every year Etnika puts up a fantastic show… and every year, Andrew worries that he won’t have enough money/sponsorship to put a concert up the next year. Well, while living in hope that there will be one next year, you can watch last year’s offering on DVD, according to The Times:

Etnika are releasing on DVD etnikafe-Kabare Malti, the live 2005 concert held near the former Barrakka lift at Lascaris Wharf, in Valletta. The DVD has 14 tracks featuring over 40 performers including Salvu Giordamaina's Village Brass Band and guest appearances by Frans Baldacchino il-Budaj, Toni Spiteri Tal-Gebel, Malta's last exponent of tanbur playing, It-Tommi and Alison Galea of the Beangrowers. It also features innovative use of Maltese instruments such as the zafzafa, zaqq, zummara, tanbur and trepied and high-powered percussion rhythms, evocative flamenco moves and performance art by Help The Blind Artist.

Etnika DVDs are available from all leading record and gift shops and through www.etnika.com.mt. Let's hope that the time will not come that this will be the only way to watch and listen to traditional music.