El Salvador’s Camones in Concert--More or Less

Music took second billing to the irony and raw emotion that the mostly Salvadoran audience brought to Friday’s Cutumay Camones concert at Patriotic Hall downtown.

On their way into the hall, concert-goers passed murals depicting patriots of the American Revolution. Inside, the music and video images were also of revolutionaries--the guerrilla fighters of El Salvador’s Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front.

The event’s promoters failed to mention a key program omission, however. Four of the group’s five members had stayed behind in El Salvador to perform in guerrilla-controlled areas. That left Eduardo Gonzalez as the only live performer.

His fellow Camones were represented on videotape, shown marching through jungles with violins on their backs and M-16s on their shoulders. Still, the tall and lanky Gonzalez managed to create several explosives moments singing in a range of styles, including a corrido (story song) about how to make contact grenades.