Andres Calamaro kisses the floor of the stage Axerquía Theater in Córdoba while a bullfighter pasodoble plays. It is his way, the way, pardon the redundancy, of saying goodbye to the respectable that great pontiff of rock which proves once again to be, of saying goodbye to a dedicated audience that has experienced a recital that began with blues chords, those of It doesn’t go any further, and concluded 20 songs later with the dirty beautiful rock chords of, pardon the redundancy again, High dirt. And one thinks, blessed that September 28 from just over two decades ago, the day the Buenos Aires native landed in Madrid to pursue a career in Spain. Blessed was that day when he met the longed-for gourmet guitarist Guille Martinand then end up becoming a Rodríguez.
Blessed also is that April 16, 1999the day his second solo LP was released after the adventure rodriguense with ex-tequilas Ariel Rot and Julián Infante and with Germán Vilella, the highly acclaimed brutal honesty, a superb album that like Marty McFly is now presenting on his tour Agenda 1999 as if it made us travel in time. Yes, we are in 2024, but Calamaro has decided that we return to the dawn of the boundary between the 20th and 21st centuries, demonstrating with the exquisite repertoire that the blues and rock he performs with his band are two perfect and wonderful bastard brothers. German Wiedemer (keyboards), Julián Kanevsky (guitars), Mariano Domínguez (bass), Andrés Litwin (drums), Brian Figueroa (guitars)…in short, great music at the level of the apostle of a rock inspired by the Stones that in Córdoba exudes brutal honesty, bullfighter rock.
After a “Córdoba, good night“, Calamaro began his recital in the caliphal city by introducing two of his musicians, two of his “crew or sailors, Brian Figueroaon the guitar, and Andrew Litwinon the drums”, before distilling pure blues the first touches of It doesn’t go any further. It is noticeable and felt that AC likes Córdoba, he demonstrated it once again in a Theater in Axerquía where, using music as a joke, he dedicated the concert to two illustrious people from Córdoba, “to Vincent Friend already Manoletecultural icon of this city,” he highlighted.
He poet Calamaro has the good habit of modifying the live repertoire each season and on this occasion that repertoire revolves around an album “with which the duel between prestige and success began,” he said, a double album that begins with World Women’s Dayl -which in Córdoba was the seventh song on his setlist- and ends with The back -not performed in Córdoba-. The setlist was made up 16 songs from the LP brutal honestythree from the LP High dirt (the first one he recorded after his time in Los Rodríguez), two of The salmonthat quintuple album that was marked and that followed brutal honesty and one of Bohemian.
After It doesn’t go any furtherthey sounded So that? and Eclipsed before made the respectable stand up when singing a verse: When I met you you were no longer dating the first person who had abandoned you / It’s not worth talking about of those years gone by / When I met you you were no longer dating that married boy / Who promised you he would leave her and still hadn’t divorced her. How delights Jose Tomas in Las Ventas playing his part with a Mihura, Calamaro delighted the audience by playing when i met youthe seventh cut from that album, brutal honestywhich reflects a fruitful, painful and intricate time in the singer’s life.
Squid, with the mastery of a craftsman who outstandingly knows the secrets of his trade, wove a repertoire of songs that spoke of lost loves, of endless nights and of that melancholy so typical of those who have seen the years go by with the patience of someone who knows that everything, ultimately, is a reflection of eternity. Thus, they were happening A bomb, The wounds, world women’s day and It’s nine o’clockuntil reaching another peak of the setlist, The airplanes. It’s late and it’s daylight / Thank goodness it’s cloudy / Everything that was there is gone / There’s a wet cigarette left / Everything that was there is gone
There’s a wet cigarette left / Because I want to sleep / And dream about her / While outside / The planes go by / I don’t want it to end / I don’t want you to abandon me. Simply brutal.
Each song was a story in itself, a story told through chords that resonated in the most intimate corners of the soul.. Not so Buenos Aires / clonazepan and circus, All you need is pop, Más hurts and I love you just the same, a hymn to acceptance and understanding of human imperfections that resonated like a mantra that purified spirits. How they resonated too I’m going to sleep, Victoria and Soledad, When you’re not here, Yours always and Skinny, that ode to the fragility of love that rose with the force of a prayer, drawing sighs and applause from an audience that found in each word an echo of their own experiences. Behind her, a distorted guitar announced that also mythical song Calamariense what is Pigeonthe last one before the encores, which composed two other classics, perfect crimes and High dirt before that bullfighter pasodoble sounded and the singer kissed the floor of the Axerquía after wasting his brutal honesty in Córdoba. “Thank you very much, Córdoba… Many years playing in the shadow of the mosques and the legend of Manolete. It is always a privilege to tour Andalusia and Spain. Of a thousand loves,” he put the epilogue to that waste of brutal honesty.
