Who is the richest of all the Redonditos? Some will say that he is Skay, composer of the songs and father of the band’s musical genetics. Others, however, will nominate the Indian, author of the letters and owner of public discourse. Solari, meanwhile, dared to offer a surprising response: he named Semilla Bucciarelli. “I think he’s the most… round,” she told the magazine. Humor in 1988. Almost twenty years later, when the separation of the band was not postulated as such, but merely as an indefinite stoppage, the bassist lashed out at both: “If Patricio Rey had legs, I would kick them in the ass.” .
Semilla considered that “they want to take over something that actually belongs to the public.” Perhaps the final answer is out there: the phenomenon would not be such without the popular reaction. Of course there are the songs, their lyrics and the riffs. But without a mass that echoes that reverberation, there would be no canonical songs, flags or tattoos. It would be like a hollow shock wave, white noise without registration. As true as so many other artistic projects seek the same resonance and do not achieve it, even moving similar volumes of people.
Last weekend, the Ricotera hosts had a complete experience like never before: on Friday Skay Beilinson played at Luna Park, while on Saturday Los Fundamentalistas del Aire Aconditiono played at the Estadio Único in La Plata. The two faces of Patricio Rey a few kilometers away and a few hours apart. Something like this had never happened since August 4, 2001, when Los Redondos gave their last act at the Córdoba World Cup Stadium.
Skay debuted at the Palacio de los Deportes at the right time: Flaco is still in good shape at 72 years old, while Luna is hosting its last recitals before closing indefinitely for renovations and etc. that are not entirely clear. The Fakires, Skay’s support group, allow him to offer a monolithic and minimalist version of just four musicians (two guitars, bass and drums; without additional keys, winds or choirs), which Skay uses to make a repertoire almost exclusively on its own and in a short period of time.
The show lasted just over an hour and a half, and of the total list of 23 songs, only four were by Los Redondos (with Superlogical and The kid from the shipyards in the same medley). The others were songs from his own solo albums, eight in total. A relaxed concert in which Beilinson delegates many solos to Joaquín Rosson to dedicate his main effort to basically the only thing he did not do before becoming a soloist: singing.
The next day, Los Fundamentalistas made the opposite plan: a performance of 33 songs concentrated on Ricotera’s discography more than on their own, and without Indio on stage, at least in a molecular and analogical way (beyond his six participations in through screens and edited voice tracks). Some disparagingly point out that LFDAA is “barely” a cover band. There is some certainty in this, although with the difference compared to the same ones of their kind in that, in this case, they have the curatorship and spiritual guarantee of Solari. No wonder: many also participated in the albums that the combo recorded.
There is a tacit pact between the original performers of the spirit of Patricio Rey: each can carry out their own exercise of exegesis without having to ask the other’s permission. They were all part of that stage corporality and, therefore, they should not be accountable to anyone. This is how the Kermesse Redonda appears with a large part of the other former members who do not report to either Los Fakires or Los Fundamentalistas: Sergio Dawi, Semilla Bucciarelli and Tito Fargo, mainly, who also call themselves Los Decoradores in mockery of what El Indio said about the role of his other colleagues in Los Redonditos.
And Rocambole, creator of the visual meta-message that gives durability through several books (Back to October: what was left in the pipeline either The Thousand and One Nights of Patrick the King), talks, courses and tours through Argentina and neighboring countries. In the saga of tribute bands, meanwhile, Tarea Fina stands out, who usually have drummer Walter Sidoti in their ranks and also El Soldado, former leader of Los Redondos and the only one who could have the entire band under his command in an own album (the initiation Fugitive Train).
Beneath any format there will always be a greater or lesser mass of people willing to celebrate the evocation of that artistic inventory incubated in the heat of political contexts that come, come and return with different faces but the same smells. Like a commodity that fits any packaging as long as the same content is trafficked within it. A social movement of magnitude, significance and no possible comparison in modern Argentine history. Hijacking your mood while you are filming horror movies.
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