Madrid. On a night like this 40 years ago, Miguel Ríos helped Spanish music take a qualitative leap with a show, “Rock & Ríos”, become a totem for artists of various generations such as Víctor Manuel, Rosendo, Amaral or Vetusta Morla, who have claimed it in another concert to remember.
It was not in a sitting format, nor at the Wizink Center in the Spanish capital, nor on March 11, but the sensations experienced on March 4 and 5, 1982 at the Real Madrid Pavilion must have been very similar to those of today, with the venue turned into a hive of 12,000 people, with no more tickets at the box office.
Among famous faces such as those of El Gran Wyoming or Dani Rovira, the wave of historical resonance has meant that among a talludite general public there were many faces that probably had not even been conceived or were just children when the original appointment took place.
Also then an anniversary was commemorated, that of the 20 years of “El rey del twist”, Ríos’s first albumpioneer of rock in Spanish who had just recorded three albums that had put him back in the pillory, such as “The old rockers never die” (1979), and who also had a generous financial mattress for his celebrated version of the “Anthem to joy.”
The artist from Granada did not skimp on technical means and hired teams that had previously passed through the hands of leading international figures such as Peter Gabriel, quite a change for the Spartan resources that were used in these parts.
“They did it because they didn’t know it was impossible,” recalled the record that immortalized those two live shows that, in effect, almost didn’t take place when the teams were held up at the Irún border and arrived in Madrid just in time “to pull microphones and cables”.
After that, the challenge of performing quality magic with music became more and more common in Spain, also tonight, in a “show” with even more means, but which has commemorated the beginning of the miracle by interpreting the repertoire as It was done in 1982 and almost with the same band, even with one of the two drummers of that time.
In the absence of the deceased Sergio Castillo and Paco Palacios, for whom there has been a memory, there have been Mario Argandoña and the very young debutant Pablo Narea (drums), Tato Gómez (bass), John Parsons (guitar), Antonio García de Diego (guitar and voices), José Nortes (guitar), Mariano Díaz (keyboards) and Thijs van Leer (piano and organ).
“Don’t look at how heavy 40 years are”, their captain has confessed at one point, although with “loaded cufflinks” or without them, the group’s dedication has been total in songs like “Banzai” or “Al-Andalus” and, when not It has been so much, the overwhelming emotional inertia of classics like “Santa Lucía” has shone.
There has only been a small waiver in “Al sur de Granada”, which Ríos has interrupted when realizing that he was interpreting it in a different tone.
COVERED BY THE STARS, INCLUDING ROSENDO.
Dedicated and full, clad in his leather jacket, Ríos appeared punctually at 10 p.m. with the mythical greeting to “the children of rock and roll” from “Welcome”, a hymn that has also reached the grandchildren and has been answered by unison by all attendees standing with their fists raised.
At the present moment, prophetic have sounded the verses “Today the world is in conflict and we have decided to intervene” from “A space dream”, with its cosmic arrangements, even more so for its maintained union with the utopia of “Year 2000”, in the one that warned: “Someone dictates his sentence / Telling you that it is for your good / And between consumption and repression / Violence will overwhelm us.”
“Perhaps I am deluded but I have always had faith in human beings, there are more good people than bad, although it seems that they are more powerful”, he said before recalling the invasion of Ukraine, “where millions of defenseless people suffer”, and to make an exception in the revisitation of “Rock & Ríos” to sing the “Prayer” by Luis García Montero.
“Limit Generation” has sounded between images of events that have marked these four decades in Spain, such as the Barcelona Olympics, the murder of Miguel Ángel Blanco, the tar crisis or the arrival of the euro, while in “Looking for the light” he has had the spiritual gospel choir of Rebeca Rods and its no less than twenty members, the vast majority women.
They weren’t the only ones invited to the stage, which was also attended by Anni B Sweet as the incarnation of “Nueva ola”, Javier Vargas and his guitar to commemorate a very powerful “A horse named death” or Víctor Manuel to give wings to the ” The blues of the bus”, of whose lyrics he is co-author, with its emblematic chorus of “I live on the road”.
The Amaral duo have also been there, embarking on an expansive “El Río” in the voice of the Zaragozan, Shuarma (of Elefantes) to turn on “Ciudad de neon”, also Carlos Tarque (of M-Clan) and guitarist Jorge Salán (both in an adrenaline-pumping “Banzai”), the young Ainoa Buitrago as “Queen of the night” or the Javier Ruibal National Prize for Current Music to invoke the progressive “Al-Andalus” together with her daughter Lucía with her heels.
Mikel Izal (who has performed “Rocanrol búmerang”) and Pucho and Guille Galván (from Vetusta Morla, who have appropriated “Strangers in the shop window”) have joined the list of stars, before the unappealable and most necessary that never “Hymn to joy”.
For the encores, there have been tributes to other fundamental figures of rock in Spanish, such as Moris and his “Saturday night”, which has been played by Ariel Rot or, precisely, Tequila, for whose “Rock&roll in the Plaza del town” Alejo Stivel has appeared, while Johnny Burning has aired his “Move your hips” and Los Topo, “My friends where are they”.
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In this group there has been no lack of “Ways of Living” by Leño, which has managed to bring Rosendo himself out of retirement for the first time, a very celebrated surprise until the conclusion with “Lua Lua Lua”, putting the finishing touch to almost two hours and half of music, although this Saturday, and again with the capacity sold out, there will be a second occasion at the Wizink Center to welcome “the allies of the night”.
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