Rodrigo y Gabriela

Wherever this dynamic duo plays, jaws drop in awe and butts shake in delight. Though the Mexican metalheads known as Rodrigo y Gabriela first grabbed America’s attention with fiery acoustic covers of Metallica and Led Zeppelin, theirs is no novelty act. Veterans of Mexico’s fertile death-metal scene, Rodrigo Sanchez and Gabriela Quintero made the move to acoustics to accommodate a lifestyle of traveling and busking in European cities, from Dublin to Copenhagen to Barcelona. Though they left the amps behind, the two fret-ticklers kept their astonishing finger-picking and rhythmic skills. Melding various Latin styles with gypsy music and their beloved hard rock, Rodrigo y Gabriela produce incomparable instrumental rock that is both precisely intricate and rousingly primal. The twosome evokes a full band with just two guitars and four hands, using guitars as melodic, rhythmic and percussive instruments, to mind-boggling and ear-pleasuring effect. Refreshingly unique and irresistibly soul-stirring, Rodrigo y Gabriela are poised to set the world on fire — if they don’t set their axes ablaze first.