Santana shows he’s still smoldering at 75 at CMAC show (see photos)

Watching people slowly walking into the Constellation Brands Amphitheater (CMAC) Thursday night, it was obvious that most of the nearly 6,500 concert goers were at least in their 50s, which was odd because over the decades, there were always a large number of younger folks. Not so for this second stop on Santana’s short 1001 Rainbows Tour — only 14 scheduled dates. The days of mega tours for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame guitarist evidently are over which stands to reason after over 50 years on the road.

Thankfully, Santana, who turns 76 next month, was dressed as usual with his trademark fedora and one of his many flamboyant jackets. He has never waivered from his love of blues, rock, blues, fusion jazz and salsa and their set this night included some interesting medleys with song segments from lesser performed songs laced in. The massive LED lighted backdrop that was constructed for the band’s 50th anniversary tour again featured a gigantic rear screen monitor featuring vintage footage from the band’s performance at Woodstock ‘69 along with many random clips of people of all ages from different parts of the world smiling and dancing. The visual stimulation of banks of brightly colored flashing LED lights together with two giant fog machines blowing smoke all about the stage was sensory stimulation ramped up and had not been used to this extent in previous tours.