El Cafe

18 hours ago

3 min read

There are gigs where you stand politely at the back and watch a band perform, and then there are nights like Thursday at El Café in Carcaixent, where the distance between stage and audience disappears somewhere around the second chorus and suddenly everybody in the room appears to have joined the band.

Midnight Train Trio rolled into El Café with Will McCarthy on guitar and vocals, Stefano Cecchi on trumpet and Rafa Arriaza on electric bass, armed with a suitcase full of blues, rock’n’roll and classic songs from the 1950s and 60s. What followed was a glorious little musical time machine, with a packed room singing along, drinking, laughing and generally behaving as though someone had secretly announced that Thursday was actually Saturday.

And nobody seemed particularly keen to correct them. The trio's choice of covers was spot-on, digging into the great roots of blues and rock’n’roll without turning the evening into some stiff museum-piece exercise. These are songs that have survived for decades because they still work, and Midnight Train Trio clearly understand that the trick isn't simply to reproduce them but to have some fun with them.

McCarthy's guitar provided the engine, shifting comfortably between bluesy warmth and rock’n’roll swagger, while Cecchi's trumpet added a beautifully smoky edge to the sound. Arriaza's bass kept the whole operation moving underneath it all, giving this three-piece considerably more weight than you might expect from the name on the poster.

But there was something else happening in the room that couldn't be rehearsed. The crowd was completely into it! People weren't simply standing around watching the band; they were singing along, clapping, joining in and providing their own unofficial backing vocals. By the middle of the set, El Café had developed the slightly chaotic feeling of a very well-organised party, which is pretty much the highest compliment you can give a live music venue.

And then there is Enric, the owner of El Café, whose enthusiasm for music has helped turn the venue into an increasingly important part of the local scene. El Café isn't an enormous concert hall and doesn't pretend to be one. It doesn't need giant video screens, pyrotechnics or enough lighting equipment to guide aircraft into Valencia Airport. What it does have is atmosphere, proximity and a genuine connection between the musicians and the people standing a few metres away. That is the magic of the place.

On Thursday, you could feel the local character of Carcaixent running through the evening. Musicians, regulars, friends, neighbours and curious newcomers all ended up sharing the same small space, and Midnight Train Trio fitted into that environment perfectly.

There was no great distance between performer and audience, no sense of watching something happening somewhere else. The band played, the crowd responded, the crowd sang, the band responded to that, and suddenly the whole thing had developed a life of its own.

At various points, El Café felt less like a café and more like a tiny rock’n’roll club that had somehow been transported from another decade and accidentally parked in the middle of Carcaixent. Which, frankly, is exactly what you want from a Thursday night. Midnight Train Trio brought the songs. Enric provided the room. The crowd provided the chorus. And judging by the noise coming from El Café, nobody was in any particular hurry to catch the last train home!