3rd July 2009 La Exelencia @Rumberos, The Wardrobe, Leeds

If any concert laboured under the weight of expectation, it would be this one. As I descended the red-walled stairs into the cauldron that is The Wardrobe, I spied many of the region's great and good: Mary and Tony of Salsa York, Lossie and Gareth of Encuentro Latino, Amos de Roover of Salsa Sin Limite, Dave Fenton of Mambo Collective, and organisers Fabio Bahia and Lubi of course; gathered together for what we anticipated to be the gig of the year. The floor was just getting packed under the exhortations of Simon Taylor, the Midlands-based Flip and Bounce salsa instructor, as his lesson got underway - an apt 'New York' style prelude to the main event.

Hanging with Tony Piper

I'd been aware of La Excelencia's progress, notified mainly by Facebook's photo updates, and knew that this was the last date since their arrival via the Channel Tunnel: a hectic schedule which took in Brighton, London and Glastonbury. A small part of me felt trepidation on the band's part; 'Mi Tumbao Social' had raised the bar so high, and I wondered how much there was in the tank after a grueling world tour. And there was the added consideration that artists can be good musicians, performers or entertainers, but very few are blessed with the complete package.

I busied myself with dalliances and a spot of not-very-clean dancing. Before I knew it La Excelencia had sprung out of the woodwork, giving us the CD's opening track 'Salsa dura' full-bore!

My initial impressions were good, but not sensational. There was a mismatch between what I saw on stage and what I heard: La Excelencia were playing tighter than a proverbial pit-bull's behind with its proverbials in a vice; and yet the music lacked sparkle - the sound pressure levels were too high for the room; the cymbals lacked 'air' because of a high frequency cut; the piano, central to their album's sound, was imperceptible; and the lead vocals sounded forced as if battling fatigue. I tuned out the audio preferring to emphasise the visual spectacle instead, waiting for the sound techs to get their act together.

I was right.

Giving it the beans: La Excelencia's vocal dynamo

At the end of the number the singers wanted their stage monitors on, not just up! That explained the 'forced' quality. As the sound improved, La Excelencia lengthened their stride and ramped up the atmosphere. In my review of their album, I'd failed to mention the herculean lead vocalists Edwin Pérez and Gilberto Velázquez. I couldn't do so here. As the band's front men they are phenomena to be reckoned with live: dominating presences at the front-of-stage who just exude tremendous energy during performance.

Their set-list was a well chosen sequence of dynamics and so deliberately made for dancing, seamlessly marshaled through the hand of music director and pianist Willy Rodriguez. That they executed it all with such seemingly deceptive ease made me lime-green with envy, but more with admiration. During 'Aña pa' mi tambor' the dance floor, normally filled with oblivious-to-live-music salseros, had eyes for naught but the stage - there is NO greater compliment in this country.

When Looey met Willy - finally, in person

The culmination of their startling gig was a climax where the brass section paraded through the audience playing moñas drawing the involvement of the dancers. On stage was a virtuoso dance solo in the urban style, the rumba columbia from New York City. I mentally willed La Excelencia to play every song from the album. But that wasn't going to happen. I would have liked to hear them play a good ole Fania classic like 'Todo tiene su final' or 'Mi gente', just so I could assess that dimension of their prodigious ability. That didn't happen either.

But what I had was enough.

La Excelencia are a band of irrepressible youth, yet they possess the maturity to play with the fuerza (power) and afinque (cohesion) of their paragon forefathers. That makes them rare. That they record and entertain magnificently to boot...

La Excelencia givin' it their salsa thing!

That, makes them unique.

Loo Yeo