The Festival Hall isn't the most natural venue for a fiesta of Latin American music, especially now it has joined the interminable list of notable London landmarks that have been converted into permanent building sites. Nor is the vibe enhanced by having the auditorium patrolled by heavy-handed security guards.

When the Spanish Harlem Orchestra took to the stage, the hall was barely half full. Undeterred, they steadily set about transforming the atmosphere into something more congenial, led from the piano by musical director Oscar Hernandez. A trio of vocalists (Ray de La Paz, Marco Bermudez and Willie Torres) swapped leads and harmonies while the band started to flex its musical muscle, ripping out cacophonous fanfares of brass against a backdrop of percussion that shimmered like reeds in a light breeze. On bass, Hector Rodriguez kept finding immense low-register frequencies that made the floor quake.

However, it was the arrival of Ruben Blades that almost everybody had been waiting for and by the time he appeared, the hall was full and the crowd was ready to party. Blades and Hernandez used to work together in the fabled Seis del Solar, so for salsa buffs this was a reunion of Simon and Garfunkel-esque proportions. Blades, who might end up as president of Panama one day, brought an edge and focus to the music, haranguing the crowd in Spanish as he worked his way through songs from Cuba and Puerto Rico, making numerous doffs of his pork-pie hat to his erstwhile collaborator, Willie Colon.

Security goons notwithstanding, the audience were clapping, cheering, and swaying elastically to the cascading cross-rhythms. I could have used some changes of tone and tempo, but couldn't spot anybody else in the audience who seemed to agree.