When El Ultimo de la Fila goes on stage, rock singer Manolo Garcia strikes the pose of a matador, flamenco dancers swirl and stamp to the sound of electric guitars and screaming fans surge forward.
Although lead guitarist Quimi Portet says the group plays rock music, the back-up acoustic guitar, castanets and wailing vocals that have become its trademark are unmistakably Spanish.Spain is synonymous with music, but only recently has home-grown rock 'n' roll moved to center stage as the country witnessed explosive growth in bands, concerts and record companies in the past decade.
When Elvis Presley, Little Richard and the Beatles hit the music scene, Spaniards were living under a military dictatorship. But the death of authoritarian ruler Gen. Francisco Franco in 1975 and Spain's transition to democracy provided the cultural and political context within which local rock could flourish.
Rock bands soon became blatantly ideological in their lyrics and entertained at political rallies and municipal gatherings as the music became a banner for a cultural and political reawakening known as the "movida" - the happening.
"I don't think what happened was a cultural renaissance, or anything like that," said rock singer Anton Reixa, "What happened is that people all of a sudden returned to the way they had always been. Madrid of the `movida' of the early '80s was like the Madrid of Arniches, Madrid of the `zarzuelas,' but with spiked hair and pop music." (Carlos Arniches was an early 20th-century composer who wrote for music halls; zarzuelas are operettas based on popular themes.)
Early Spanish rock was little more than an imitation of British and American music, but musicians gradually began to experiment.
This experimentation led to the birth of flamenco-rock. Such Groups as Triana (a neighborhood in Seville), were a precursor to El Ultimo (the last in line). "Triana" excited listeners in the late '70s with their mixture of rock and Gypsy-inspired Andalusian folklore.
The legalization of Spain's regional languages following the return to democracy opened the way for groups such as Os Resentidos (the Resentful), a band from Galicia that mixes raunchy, distorted sounds of electric guitar and synthesizers with bagpipe music.