The Last Internationale

Rock In Río Tea, Ponteareas

Firebrand New York duo singe northwestern Spain with incendiary set.

As the sun sets, The Last Internationale skip out for an acoustic show on a concrete bandstand in a small park, and are greeted by an audience wearing blue surgical masks, sitting in pairs and threes on socially-distanced chairs.

In her shades and a multi-coloured tassled bomber jacket, Delila Paz makes quite an entrance. But that’s nothing of an eyebrow-raiser compared to when she opens her mouth to sing. To her right, guitar slinger Edgey Pires, hunched over a 12-string as they begin with Killing Fields, somehow manages not to stare in amazement.

After Mind Ain’t Free, We Will Reign and Wanted Man, Paz gets rid of her jacket and the pair are both in de-rigeur black with red trim. A simple, calculated and cool look matched by the electric piano that she sits at for the as-yet-unreleased Running For A Dream. A heart-rending lyric on the plight of asylum seekers is matched by a jaw-dropping performance.

The goosebumps remain as Delila steps down in front of the stage during the night’s only cover – Change Is Gonna Come by Sam Cooke – and stamps a sparkly gold stack-heel on the concrete while singing like everyone’s lives depended on it, before Edgey’s guitar steers them into Hard Times and Hit Em With Your Blues and an epic evening ends with the footstompin’ 1968.