It neither starts nor ends fast-paced. Speed is the soul of contemporary pop concerts and there is no respite for the eye. The spectacle is speed, like an extreme overflowing. That is why Rosalía’s live performance draws attention by seeking its own space, a place of certain calm that begins with classical music and welcomes the public into the venue. This Monday she played Barcelona, in the first of her four concerts in her city, as she said emotionally, truly tearing up, evoking Peret, at the Palau Sant Jordi. Everything full of course. And it started slowly, with her suspended by her dancers as if she were a Greek statue changing location in the Louvre. The public, who already knew everything necessary about the concert, did not cease to be amazed, because even with everything, there was nothing like being in front of the star.
And listening to Rosalía sing Sex violence and tires, Relicwith her static, almost like Lot turned to salt after looking at the forbidden city or Porcelain, it is something that impacts. Like her tears, like what would later happen in an extraordinary performance framed in a show that is much more than lights and speed. Call it art.
An art that does not hide seams, since in the second piece, Relic, The workers were tinkering with props on which she would soon mark that My Christ Cries Diamenti That closed the first of the four chapters is this montage. A montage that, despite the fact that she danced and approached the orchestra and the audience, seems designed to create almost motionless snapshots that deserve to be remembered. Prints. Hence the pictorial intention, that vindication of an ancient art that must be looked at several times and even from various frames. None of the speed Motomami, We are on a spiritual plane, it seemed to suggest, where meditation resides without the haste and anxieties that are left at the door. Lux’s songs fit into that context as much as the clothes that Rosalía wears and the most dedicated assistance imitating them. If the languages of his latest work did not seem like a mere whim, neither is the aesthetic display of his staging. Everything in Rosalía has a reason, a purpose.
In an article in the Argentine digital magazine Amphibianand regarding Ca7riel and Paco Amoroso, it was highlighted that in contemporary entertainment the songs must be accompanied by a narrative that maintains them, a universe in the fleeting transmedia world. This is what the Argentine duo, Bad Bunny and Rosalía, have done, which even suggests an elusive instruction manual that the public understands because beforehand, even before the album is released, they already comment on it and internalize it. This is not the typical show to amaze with technology, but with plastic that fits. There have been examples, from the fascinating Pet Shop Boys of 1991, the visual Madonna of 2001, the Solange of maximum minimalist sophistication in Primavera Sound of 2013, the fabulous David Byrne of Cruïlla 2018 or that cinematic Tangana of 2022. Major words.
In Rosalía’s concert there were costume changes, from the dark and almost Goyesque of the second act, which began with thunderous operatic overtones in Berghain and followed by Just in case o famesongs of different stripes but that work together in Rosalía’s pop world; until the final, leisurely white, to end the concert deep within each person with Magnolias. And techno, and Frankie Valli and glitches, and bent string and bass to demolish Troy and agile dancing. There was a fascinating trompe-l’oeil choreography devised by Dimitri Papaioannou in The pearlframes to fit Rosalía as a subject and a game with recognizable famous paintings, high culture but without going overboard, to entertain during an intermission. And the confessional, a moment of trouble with the actress and presenter Yolanda Ramos.
“Feel free and tell me everything,” Rosalía said, “we have to talk about a bastard, right?” Yolanda Ramos responded. And after Rosalía’s yes, Yolanda proceeded to the demolition for being unfaithful, shabby, a hamster and having onion hair. And for shaving her when she wanted to self-destruct while having an affair with the guy. Poor Yolanda drank her own hair by mistake. But for the poor man, the subject, a musician to be exact. A certain Joan.
She also spoke, freely and satisfied, as if she were among friends. In fact he did it with a 13 year old boy who was there at his first concert, and before Sauvignon Blanc She remembered that the first concert she attended was with her parents, to see Estopa. And when he approached the audience, he hugged an older man whose stunned and happy look shone brighter than the spotlight that illuminated the moment. By the way, so that no one would miss a detail, the Catalan lyrics of the songs were shown at the top of the stage, while on another screen, behind the sound table, those lyrics were in Spanish or in the languages in which he sang. There was no need to translate the “boti, boti, boti fill de puta qui no boti”, which gave way to a botafumeiro-speaker with a deafening version of CUUUUUuuuuute. This section was the most rhythmic, the greatest formal concession to a classical concert, with the punch of Bizcochito, and the transvestite merengue Desperate, con Robot Bride and Focu’ranni.
And all of this worked because Rosalía put together a balanced repertoire in which fit counts more than memory. And because pop is that music that absorbs everything without losing strength, meaning and coherence. Rosalía is not avant-garde like Holly Herndon, nor strange like The Residents, nor does she even reinvent herself, since everything is the result of an evolution that started from flamenco, present with In the morning, The Rumba of Forgiveness or The Redeemer and that no one, perhaps not even herself, knows where it will end. It is high-level commercial pop, entertainment music not exempt from moving sensitive fibers in which the songs do not sound on stage cut, summarized or pushed by haste. Pause and pop, stamp, and a show to show it off. From his voice, I can only say that it is the fabulous finishing touch, the carnal and flexible pinnacle of this museum without cracks that is the tour of Lux.
It is high-level commercial pop, entertainment music not exempt from moving sensitive fibers in which the songs do not sound on stage cut, summarized or pushed by haste. Pause and pop, stamp, and a show to show it off. From his voice, all I can say is that it is the fabulous finishing touch, the carnal and flexible pinnacle of this seamless museum that is Lux’s tour.
