“I think he sends me photos with celebrities just to fuck around,” says Vitico before bursting out laughing in a downtown bar. The one who sends him the photos is Nico Bereciartúa, his son, with whom he played for years in Viticus and in the latest reincarnation of Riff and who is now nothing more and nothing less than the guitarist of the Black Crowes. It is usually an exaggeration or commonplace to say that someone “fulfilled a dream” but in this case it is real, or even an understatement: Nico not only plays in Primera but is also an official member of his favorite band, the one that appeared on all his posters. as a teenager, as if Juanse had suddenly replaced Jagger in the Stones. And with the position come a lot of benefits, such as the photos in question. “Look, I’m going to show you,” says the Chancellor, and begins to fiddle with the phone until he shows the screen, in which Nico appears hugging a gray-haired man who turns out to be Jimmy Page. “It’s not that I’m proud: I admire him,” confesses Bereciartúa Sr., now seriously. And a couple of days later, Bereciartúa Jr., the Argentine guitarist of the Black Crowes, tells while walking through the streets of Amsterdam waiting for the next stop on his European tour, what it’s like to interact with the sacred monsters of classic rock .
What was that meeting with Jimmy Page at the Hammersmith Apollo in London like?
I was really impressed with the friendliness. The guy was hanging the pass, it’s like “you’re Jimmy Page, no one is going to ask you for the pass.” I would see him and say “it can’t be how he greeted me”, in a very friendly way. And when he found out that he was Argentine, he told me “oops, I love Argentina, are you friends with César Gueikian?” [CEO de Gibson]. We talked for a while and then the show came and I remember that the first four songs I saw him standing with Steven Tyler in the sound booth, where the console is, and on the fourth song I saw that he was no longer there and I said “well.” “Of course, they came, they talked to us, they saw four songs, they looked good and they left,” and suddenly I looked to the side of the stage and they were there, making videos, with their phones filming. And when the show ends, I go down the stage, he grabs my hand, stops me and says, “You don’t know how much I enjoyed listening to you play, how you connected with Rich.” [Robinson, guitarrista y fundador de los Crowes] how they assemble.” And there I took the opportunity to tell him “look, you have no idea what this means to me.” Always with great respect and caution. You could be there like a gede bothering me. I didn’t even ask for the photos. Ross Halfin, who is a friend of mine and the band, was the one who said “Jimmy, let me take a photo of you with Nico.” And after the show I told him: “I called my mother to tell her that I had met you, she came to see you here in London when she came to live with my father… They were there for a year or so, and the first night in London they were to see Led Zeppelin presenting Volume IV at the Alexander Palace, and when I told him that I had met you he started crying.” And she grabs my hand and tells me “how nice what you are telling me, when you talk to your mother next tell her that she has to be proud of her son and that Jimmy loves her son.” Incredible. It’s a hard thing to get down, I think I’m going to be in shock until he dies.
One sees them as “beasts” but they are people, they do not live in the pose of a rockstar.
Better. It happened to me with a lot of great people, like Chuck Leavell or Ronnie Wood or Steven Tyler. Sharing the stage with them is something that one would never have imagined, but when you are there, in that league, they fall and are all very humble. The Black Crowes are a band that is very much about musicians. Everyone enjoys the show, everyone treats you great. It’s dreamy. Every day when I wake up and when I go to sleep I am grateful. It is the most important thing: to thank life for everything that is happening to me because you should never take it for granted. You have to work and be prepared. When I found out that Jimmy was coming, I grabbed the viola and spent an hour practicing. Before we go on stage, Rich tells me “I told Jimmy you were good, so you better play good.” And I told him “forget it, today I’m going out like Messi.”
You didn’t just meet Page: you also played with Steven Tyler and Ronnie Wood.
Ronnie Wood came to the show in Los Angeles. They were rehearsing with the Rolling Stones in Los Angeles for this tour, and Chuck Leavell also came. [tecladista de los Allman Brothers, colaborador de Eric Clapton, los Stones y más]. They are all legends. And Steven Tyler is divine too and he has the best, and when we did “Mama Kin” he couldn’t resist it and went up. It’s not that he was going to go up: he was there at the side of the stage and when we started playing it, he got up, he couldn’t resist.
What is happening to you exceeds the fact of playing with an important band: it is something unthinkable.
Obviously, because they were my favorite band. It’s also something I looked for. I went, I traveled, I made that video with which I was very lucky… I mean, I can’t stop thinking that I was lucky, that I sent a video on Facebook and the guy saw it and answered me, he liked it, he connected with it. But there was something that always resonated with me: I would go see the Black Crowes, listen to them and say “I know I could be friends with these guys.” And today I find myself in that situation: not only playing with them, but they also say very nice things to me, and they are happy that I am there in the band, and the brothers are in a very good moment, we have a great time when we go to eating, on the buses… there is an atmosphere, a very nice vibe.
And it is also something dreamy because you are not a session player, you are one of the band, they treat you as equal.
Of course, because I have my past with Rich, eight years ago I started playing with Rich, and so there is mutual respect and they love Argentina, they love that I suddenly say something in Argentina. They ask me “how do you say that?” We drink fernet. It’s very, very nice.
How are things going now?
The tour ends and I return to Buenos Aires, I am about to release my third solo album. In September, in theory the tour with Aerosmith starts, which I hope will be done in full. And then it will be seen. I like to return to Buenos Aires, it is my place in the world, and I also still like to do my project, play my songs. And to be able to take advantage a little of everything that is happening, right? Because I think the most exciting thing about all this, apart from meeting these heroes, is reading the comments of many people who say that they are happy, or that they feel represented, or that it is an inspiration. Because like it happened to me, it can obviously happen to anyone. So reading these comments from people is something that excites me a lot, especially being so far from my house.
