Rod y Gab: Playing guitar like the devil ... on Halloween

Buskers-turned-genre-busting darlings Rodrigo Sanchez and Gabriela Quintero take the Paramount stage Wednesday evening.

Prepare to be rapturously overcome.

Because by all accounts, the pair's live acoustic guitar playing is a performance that's both head banging and soul stirring. And, above all, mind boggling: hummingbird-quick hands strumming the guitar strings as well as furiously pounding those guitar bodies. The resulting percussion evoking the fiercest flamenco foot stomping.

Yes, flamenco, although that's way too simple a descriptor for what Rodrigo y Gabriela play. And, besides, they don't care for that characterization whatsoever.

To try to label them is to incur the same disdain they have for certain music-industry executives. Just read the liner notes for their self-titled third album, specifically for the composition called "PPA." The first "p" refers to a Mexican slang word whose English translation can't be published in this newspaper. The song, the notes read, "is dedicated to all those people in 'certain' areas of the music industry, that we have had to put up with, who believe they know and understand what's going on, but who don't actually have a [expletive] clue."

So ... no labels. Better just to go with what they say in their CD's accompanying DVD interview. Musical influences are jazz, rock, Latin music "and all that." Says Quintero: "If people want to say we play dance music or disco music I don't care. It doesn't change what I play."

The best descriptor just might be glidemagazine.com: "Mariachi metal," as a reviewer wrote after the duo's New York concert earlier this year. "It's as if a roaming band of mariachis met up with a nomadic pack of Metallica die-hards on the road somewhere, and nine months later, two stars were born. One-part satanic rock, one-part angelic classical; sheer [expletive] acoustic awesomeness in totality."

The accolades have been nonstop for the Mexican natives who met as teens, according to the DVD. Sanchez played drums in his brother's metal band, and Quintero joined them on the guitar. She liked the passion of playing heavy metal. But acoustic music "equals freedom," she says. And so when they eventually paired up, they concocted a kind of rock/Latin fusion sound, dipping into Metallica, Hendrix and Zeppelin.

After playing hotel bars in Mexico City, they busked in Dublin, Copenhagen and Barcelona, also doing assorted venue gigs. Club and bar owners continually couldn't quite figure them out. However, Irish pal Damien Rice did, inviting them back to Dublin to join him on tour. Recognition followed and so did the acclaim.

Just listen once to their "Rodrigo y Gabriela" album. The intoxicating, transporting "Tamacun." The unthinkable "Stairway to Heaven." Seductive fingerpicking and crescendos that overpower. It's impossible not to fall rabid for Rod y Gab.

Live shows feature just the two of them, sitting side by side, chatting in a Spanish and Irish-accented English. One of their favorite adjectives and adverbs, reportedly, is the expletive that starts with the letter "f."

That profanity irked a writer for The Los Angeles Times at one recent concert. I say, don't be so sensitive. Besides, the show's on Halloween. Go and throw up those devil horns.

Florangela Davila: 206-464-2916 or fdavila@seattletimes.com