Santana — Hard Rock Live, Seminole Hard Rock Hollywood, Florida — April 11th 2026

Carlos Santana: Still Playing With Fire

Review by Robert Corich

There are certain guitarists whose names have become so embedded in the history of rock that it is almost possible to forget that they are still actually out there doing the job.

Carlos Santana is one of them.

At 78, he has long since passed the point where anybody needs to prove anything. The albums, Woodstock, Abraxas, Santana III, Supernatural, the Grammys, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame — the CV is already ridiculous.

And yet here we are, inside the Hard Rock Live at Seminole Hard Rock Hollywood, waiting for Santana to walk onto a stage and remind us why the whole bloody thing started in the first place.

This was the Florida stop on the Oneness Tour, and there was no support act to negotiate, no contemporary band attempting to warm up the room and no elaborate exercise in nostalgia before the main attraction.

Just Santana and his band.

Which, frankly, is exactly how it should be.

When the lights went down, the room erupted. Then came that unmistakable sound — Carlos Santana’s guitar, somewhere between a bluesman’s lament, a jazzman’s improvisation and a voice from another planet.

It is a tone that has survived five decades of musical fashion remarkably intact.

Santana doesn’t need to play like a young man because nobody else sounds remotely like Santana.

The repertoire drew heavily upon the familiar Santana canon, with Soul Sacrifice, Black Magic Woman, Oye Como Va, Maria Maria, Corazón Espinado, Europa, Evil Ways, Jingo and Smooth among the songs associated with this particular Oneness tour period.

And therein lies the difficulty of reviewing Santana in 2026.

How do you review somebody who has already written so much of the musical vocabulary being used?

The answer is to concentrate less on the songs themselves and more on what happens inside them.

Because when Santana gets going, the song becomes merely the starting point.

A riff becomes a conversation. A melody becomes an excuse for another solo. A familiar passage suddenly develops another emotional temperature because Carlos has decided to hang a few more notes in the air before bringing it home.

And then there is the other Santana.

Cindy Blackman Santana

If Carlos remains the name above the door, Cindy Blackman Santana is the engine room.

Having seen Santana in London in 2025 as well as this Florida performance, one of the most consistent impressions from both nights was just how bloody good Cindy Blackman Santana is.

And good doesn’t really cover it.

There are moments when her drumming is exciting; others when it is downright furious. She doesn’t simply keep time behind Carlos — she seems to challenge him.

Carlos throws out a phrase and Cindy answers.

Sometimes the answer sounds almost conversational.

At other times it sounds as though she has taken the original idea personally.

Her playing has power, precision and, crucially, personality. There is none of the polite, anonymous professionalism that can sometimes creep into the rhythm sections of veteran touring acts.

She hits the drums.

Hard.

And when the music opens up, she is quite capable of turning a Santana groove into something bordering on a small-scale percussion war.

That was one of the highlights of the London concert.

It was one of the highlights of Hollywood too.

Indeed, if Carlos Santana remains the public face and unmistakable voice of the band, Cindy is arguably its heartbeat.

London and Florida

The comparison with London is inevitable for me because that 2025 concert was an extraordinary evening.

It wasn’t merely good. It wasn’t simply one of those concerts where you leave thinking, well, at least they still have it.

It was one of those nights when the entire Santana concept seemed to come together — the Latin percussion, the African influence, the psychedelic rock, the improvisation and, of course, Carlos’s guitar.

And there was one particular moment from that London show that has stayed with me.

Santana slipped into Osibisa’s Sunshine Day.

It was a wonderful reminder that Santana’s musical world has always been considerably bigger than the obvious hits. Carlos has returned to Sunshine Day on numerous occasions, and hearing that African-inflected material emerge naturally from a Santana performance made perfect musical sense.

It was one of those moments when you think: Wow!, where did that come from?

I was half expecting something similar in Florida.

It never came.

There were no comparable Osibisa references, no Sunshine Day, no unexpected musical detour that suddenly opened another door into Santana’s musical imagination.

That doesn’t make the Hollywood performance inferior.

But it does make it different.

London felt adventurous.

Hollywood felt more like Santana celebrating the established catalogue.

And there is nothing wrong with that. At this stage of his career Carlos is entitled to play Black Magic Woman, Oye Como Va and Smooth until the cows come home.

But great live music is often about the unexpected.

That was what I remembered most strongly from London.

In 2025 I felt as though Santana was still exploring his own musical history.

In Hollywood, I felt as though he was celebrating it.

There is a difference.

A Word About Politics

Then Carlos spoke.

Carlos Santana has never exactly been shy about his belief in peace, unity, love and the idea that music can transcend the divisions that seem determined to consume the world.

So there was no great surprise when he delivered what could only be described as an anti-Trump message during the evening.

Except that he didn’t actually mention Trump.

He didn’t need to.

The message was clear enough.

And given that this was Florida — hardly the least politically sympathetic territory for the man being criticised — I was rather interested to see what would happen.

The answer?

A few boos.

That’s about it.

The overwhelming response was acceptance, or at least respect.

And I thought that was rather important.

Carlos wasn’t standing onstage attempting to turn a rock concert into a political convention. He was making a statement about the sort of world he believes music ought to represent — one based upon unity rather than division, compassion rather than hostility.

You can agree with him or disagree with him.

But after more than half a century of writing and performing music built around the idea of cultural and musical connection, it would actually have been rather strange if Santana suddenly decided to keep his mouth shut.

Besides, he didn’t preach for long.

He got back to the guitar. Now that’s preaching with the strings!

Which was probably the wisest decision of the evening.

The songs remembered from the performance, combined with the repertoire being played around this point in the tour, are enough to establish the shape of the night.

The precise running order can remain, for the moment, somewhere between Carlos Santana and those mysterious notes I cannot locate even though I know I took them! Most of the songs are still running around in my head.

Still Magic

The Hard Rock Live proved an appropriate home for Santana. There is something almost comically perfect about watching one of the world’s most famous guitarists perform inside a venue beneath that enormous guitar-shaped hotel.

Subtle it isn’t.

Appropriate it certainly is.

And the band itself remains a formidable proposition.

Carlos may occasionally appear physically less mobile than he once was, but the fingers haven’t received the memo.

When he plays, the years disappear.

That guitar still sings.

Sometimes it cries.

Sometimes it snarls.

And occasionally it simply takes off into the stratosphere while the rest of the band hangs on for dear life.

But the most encouraging thing about Santana in 2026 is that this isn’t simply a nostalgia act.

There is still genuine musicianship here.

Still improvisation.

Still danger.

Still Cindy Blackman Santana attacking the drums as though somebody has just questioned her credentials.

And still Carlos Santana, standing there with that unmistakable grin and an instrument that has been his voice for almost sixty years.

The London concert remains my favourite of the two.

It had the greater sense of adventure, and that wonderful Osibisa moment gave it an unexpected musical dimension that Hollywood simply didn’t replicate.

But Florida had its own strengths.

The playing was excellent.

Cindy was sensational.

Carlos was still Carlos.

And that, ultimately, is enough to make a Santana concert rather special.

Some guitar heroes spend their later years recreating their past.

Santana seems content to inhabit it.

And when those fingers touch the fretboard, the years disappear.

Amazing touch, amazing stuff, the stuff of musical magic.

Santana still play with fire and the songs remain amazing as does the delivery.

Smooth indeed.