Rodrigo and Gabriela have already taken the world by storm with their most innovative album, “In Between Thoughts... A New World,” an album they thought would be their last because they were terrified of the pandemic, but which took them to musical places they might never have explored under normal circumstances.
For example, they recorded with the Bulgarian Philharmonic Orchestra and included electronic sounds and electric guitars, something they had never done in their two-decade career.
“We thought the world was going to end, so we said, ‘Well, okay, let’s go electronic,’” Gabriela said from Colorado, where she and her bandmate were as part of their Live in Concert tour. “Rod started buying electric guitars and I came up with the idea of putting a whole orchestra in it.”
A friend of the duo in Vienna was in charge of making contact with the orchestra and in the end the Mexican band ended up with an album that people have loved.
But that doesn’t mean that Rodrigo y Gabriela will continue along those lines. In fact, in the concerts of the current tour, the second half of which begins precisely with a show at the emblematic Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles on Wednesday, September 18, they and their guitars are the only ones occupying the stage.
The shows, Gabriela said, include the most popular songs from her career, plus some of the new material.
By the end of this month, the band will have finished touring, and it will be time to return to Ixtapa, a city on the southern coast of Mexico, where the couple has their residence —each on their own— and their recording studio, to begin planning what will be their new album, which they hope to have ready in early 2025.
“The plan is [hacer] new pieces, different from what we have done,” said Gabriela, “but a bit of returning to the instrumentation not so much of an orchestra or [con] electronics, but rather going back to what we did in the beginning.”
The guitarist explained that the pieces will be “more epic, longer and with many melodies.”
At the same time, Gabriela is developing an alternative project of songs that she has written herself and that she hopes to present in public one day. She would be in charge of the guitar and a singer would interpret the songs.
“This is for the love of art,” Gabriela said. “That’s where I can really let loose and do what I want; one day I’ll share it with the world.”
In detail
That: Rodrigo and Gabriela
Where: Hollywood Bowl, 2301 Highland Ave., Los Angeles
When: Wednesday, September 18, 8 pm
As: Tickets from $10; information at hollywoodbowl.com