Bio Ritmo, Live at Emilio's

Just found this tasty little slice of home video on the web, showing one of my favorite bands--Bio Ritmo--in one of my favorite places to see them, a tapas bar and restaurant called Emilio's in Richmond, Virginia.

In fact, I might have been at this very show, since founder Jorge Negron was in town (c. April, 2007?), visiting from Puerto Rico for Bio Ritmo's 15th anniversary.



Host Mike Lebron's woman-in-the-crowd interviews are a little fluffy, but he does a nice interview with Jorge, and in the live band footage, you get a sense of how hard this band plays in the immediacy of the small club setting. It's like a time machine back to the era of old school salsa and live dance music.

Which is why I love Bio Ritmo.

[The video is from a web TV series called Noches de Richmond, which also has some sweet front-row footage of Grupo Niche.]

Epilogue: Bio Ritmo live Tuesdays at Emilio's are no more. The band has moved on to bigger and better touring opportunities, though the bar still keeps up a salsa night. The Emilio's in the video had gone through a facelift since I wrote this Indy column, in 2004. I liked its old '50s lunch counter look, but sometimes we all move on to brighter, more festive incarnations.