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Salsa Circuit
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EMC Lifestyle - My husband and I are close to being creepy super fans.
It's one thing for Deadheads to follow the Grateful Dead around North America and another for Parrotheads to trail Jimmy Buffet. But when a middle-aged couple (that would be me and hubby) start to follow a Kingston salsa musician around to different restaurants, showing up at every gig, you start to feel a tad bit silly.
We're Mario Franco groupies.
A few years ago, there was a great little Latin restaurant called Sol Latino on the corner of Princess and Barrie streets. On weekends, amazing salsa bands would overtake the restaurant and people would dance the night away. There are some incredible salsa dancers in Kingston who look like they learned their moves in a sweltering Santiago club - and then there's my husband and me. We try our best, but even after taking salsa dance classes at the YMCA and the Little Cataraqui Creek Conservation Area, we're still pretty much step-and-clap dancers. We're bad. But we love it.
One of my favourite nights in Kingston was seeing Septeto Variedades, a sizzling band from Santiago de Cuba. The party spilled out from the restaurant onto the patio. We drank mojitos, ate chicken flautas and guzzled guacamole.
Once Sol Latino vanished, the salsa music vanished from our lives until one day, we were downtown having dinner at King Street Sizzle and, somewhere around our second glass of wine, the live entertainment started: The Mario Franco Band.
We grabbed a business card and pledged we'd see him again.
A few weeks later, it was Valentine's Day. I awoke to my husband gently rubbing my back, telling me I had to get up and have a shower since we were having company for brunch. With my eyes still closed, I groggily stumbled into the bathroom to have a shower. Awake, and dressed in nothing but a towel, I stepped out of the bathroom.
What was that in my kitchen? Were those maracas? Why were their bongos in my kitchen? Congos? Crazy?
Oh. My. Lord.
My husband had brought Mario and his son Mario Jr. to our house - at 9 a.m.! - to serenade us over breakfast with his boleros, salsas and original love songs.
It was mortifying and incredibly romantic.
I was the only girl in Kingston that day with a salsa band playing in my kitchen and watching me eat scrambled eggs.
That's when the stalking really began.
A month later, we hired Mario to play at my birthday party. We had a real-life salsa band in my living room.
As my hubby whipped me around our cramped space, a glass of Shiraz went flying across the wall. Oye Como Va!
After hours of playing, our two families sat at our kitchen table, sharing stories of family, music and adventures in Cuba. He's a fascinating man. He can speak English, Spanish and Russian. He immigrated to Canada so his children could have a better life. He still has friends and family in Cuba and offered to let us visit them, stay with them, eat with them, experience true Cuban culture.
By now, my husband and I were in love - with Mario's music.
We returned to Sizzle to watch Mario and Mario Jr. play a lunchtime gig on the patio.
After that, we got a group of friends together to take in their show at the Cove in Westport.
And then, one night, on a late-night run to Wal-Mart, we bumped into Mario and his wife. No, there was no music that evening, but we did have a nice chat in the parking lot.
That was a year ago - and we haven't seen him since.
But I just discovered a bit of fantastic news - a reason to pull out my dancing shoes. Mario Franco is playing two shows next week, on July 28 on the Island Star, one of the 1000 Islands Cruises vessels.
His lunch-time show is at 12:30 p.m. A dinner cruise is at 6:30 p.m.
There's something magical about Mario: His love of life, his passion for his music, his warmth and sincerity.
And the Latin tunes? Baby-making music.
Source Sarah Crosbie
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