An evening at Los Cardones

On Saturday evening we went to a place called Los Cardones (the cactii).  We went then because the 'Rural' is on. The Rural is a huge agricultural fair that is held in BsAs every year and which I will post more about later.  People from the provinces come in for the fair and Los Cardones is one of the places that everyone heads for in the evening.  It is a bar that is based on the food and music of the northern part of Argentina and has bands playing traditional folk music.

Las Cardones

We were lucky to get in as it was booked solid, but they squeezed us on to a table.  They had good empanadas and the some decent lamb for a main course.  There was a mix up with the order and we only got the one main meal but as usual the portions were so large that we could share and still have enough - it seems that people often do share.  I can't see many places in the UK being too happy with the idea.


But the draw here isn't so much the food as the music.  They had a couple of acts on.  The first was a guy with his guitar and he was fairly decent - for as much as we know about the music - playing stuff that was quite traditional sounding.  The second act was a group, three guitars, drums and keyboards and a singer.  They still played traditional music but the style was often a bit more modern.  They were excellent and really got the crowd singing along.  Clearly we knew none of the songs, so singing was out, but we did the clapping bit along with everyone else.

Lots of waving and clapping

The bands packed up around 1:30am and then people decided to make their own entertainment.  There were four different groups of people with guitars and another pair playing the piano and a sax. They probably could have sounded fairly decent had they all joined up and played the same thing at the same time.  As it was we were sat closest to the ones that couldn't sing so we called it a night after a while.

It was good fun though and nice to see people - old and young - enjoying something traditional.  I liked the fact that they were also bringing the style of it more up to date some of the time.  Whilst I think it is good to keep traditions going in their original form, I think the way to really keep them alive is to let them grow with the people who are enjoying them now too.  The acts this evening seemed to achieve a good mix of both - and were very popular for it.