ENTERTAINMENT: Santana’s rock ’n’ roll heaven

  With the duets albums having run their course and a big residency coming up at the Hard Rock Hotel, Carlos Santana could use a new hit. And we think we’ve got it, given his recent tendency to repeat the same idea in interviews.
  The song would be called “When Eternity Nears, Time Disappears.” It would be one of those “name check” songs, in the tradition of the 1974 “Life Is A Rock (But The Radio Rolled Me)" by … bonus points if you know it … the one-hit wonder Reunion. Variations of name-packing continued with Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start The Fire” and R.E.M.’s “It’s the End of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine).”
  Santana best articulated his concept recently on the Tavis Smiley show: “(W)e found a way to understand why Marvin Gaye or Coltrane or Bob Marley, they enter a place of eternity when they go into this — for basketball players it's the zone, the groove. We have a beautiful saying; it says "When eternity nears, time disappears." And when you catch that groove, then you enter into that place where like I said, Marvin Gaye or Miles or Coltrane, they're here. They're really, really here.
  “And so when I hear music and I go in it, that's where I bring my band and myself, into that place where time disappears, gravity disappears, illusions disappear, and you go right into the center of your light. And that's the only place to really hang out.”
  But the name-checking really began to flow in a March 31 phone interview to announce the residency:
  "Here's another quote that we can put in big letters, that I think the rest of the Las Vegas performers and musicians and entertainers will grab on to: 'When eternity nears, time disappears.'
  "That means Bob Marley, Marvin Gaye, Evel Knievel, Bruce Lee, Jimmy Hendrix, (John) Coltrane, Miles (Davis), Stanley Kubrick, Picasso ... anyone that's here for eternity, that's what you need to bring onstage. Don't bring time, bring eternity with you."
  Santana riffed on a few more names in Tuesday’s official ribbon-cutting to christen the new Joint:
  "When eternity nears, time disappears. Marvin Gaye, Bob Marley, Miles Davis, Frank Sinatra, Jerry Garcia, you know who they are, and when we come here and play, we intend to channel all of them — some times at the same time. So, we feel really grateful to be here. And we extend an invitation, not only to the audience, but other parties, like Willie Nelson, Bob Dylan or Prince to come and join us, and also some African musicians and people from Hawaii, because when Santana shows up, we bring it all with us. We don’t leave anybody out."
  If you ask me, Frank Sinatra for Evel Knievel was a good switch.