During the day, Aranda de Duero is filled with music, water guns and calimocho. Barry B, as the first surprise from the Plaza del Trigo in this edition, witnessed it in his homeland. At night, Sonorama Ribera continues to operate at full capacity in the main venue, where yesterday it received three big headliners: Rigoberta Bandini, Guitarricadelafuente and Rusowsky.
With Rvfv closing the night, it was evident that this was a day aimed at a younger audience. Similar to the day in which artists as contrary as Hombres G and YSY A were scheduled two years ago, yesterday everything started with the performances of Ramoncín and Nacho Vegas. The legendary singer-songwriter’s set went from less to more, both in the audience’s response and in the arrangements of the songs.
The “shalalas” of ‘The Man Who Almost Met Michi Panero’ aroused the first palpable reactions from an audience that seemed amazed at all times. At first, Vegas’s attitude on stage can be confused with reluctance, but it is quickly understood that he is actually totally into his show. ‘The great final joke’ and ‘La pena o la nada’, with a well-deserved ovation in the middle of the song, were the most enjoyable songs. Above all, the concert ended in a grand way with a brutal guitar solo accompanied by the Vegas theremin, who more than playing an instrument seemed to be doing spells with his hands.
Before the mainstream explosion, which would keep the general public in the same place for almost 3 hours, the exploration of small stages was totally worth it after the shows of Vera Fauna and The Nest. The cool, fresh and good-natured rock of the former convinced from the beginning, but it did not shine as it should due to a series of problems with which the band was also honest: “We have gone through a small technical problem, but hasn’t anyone noticed?” Minutes before, a mobile phone was raised above the public with the following message: “YOU HEAR REGULAR”, aimed at the technicians’ booth. Until that moment, a guitar was barely heard and the members’ voices did not match as they should. However, it didn’t take long for them to become even bigger with the summery ‘Tu Voz’ and ‘No Me Digas La Verdad’.
The one of The Nest It is also a success story, being one of the groups that has gone from playing in Sonorama’s daytime programming to Plaza del Trigo and the main venue. I saw them last year at the Clamores room, on a tiny stage, and in my head they had as many members as La MODA, but in reality there are only five. They do have in common with this group that they are also from Burgos and that they succeed wherever they go. However, El Nido does not blur its Castilian roots with pop rock touches, neither in the compositions nor in the selection of instruments, which is not usual. If you like jotas and traditional music, you’ll love them. Otherwise, you would have been waiting for a good hour to see her belly up close. Rigoberta Bandini.
Being pregnant again, the Catalan artist cannot move too much. That is why the strength of his show is human connection. The key to this is the camera that Paula Ribó has integrated into her microphone, giving us a close-up of her face that is as close as it is hilarious. Likewise, its dancers and backup singers play a very important role in keeping the concert dynamic, which is achieved during most of it.
The moment of ‘Amore Amore Amore’ giving away shots of wine to the audience is very tender, but it ends up being too long. On the other hand, it is impossible not to be totally inside during Massiel’s version of ‘El amor’ or when Rigoberta appears defeated on the floor while singing “I shouldn’t have mixed you with alcohol” in ‘Siete Días’. The boy behind me didn’t need that much, assuring that the “I don’t know how to make a fried egg” in ‘Canciones de amor a ti’ represents “my whole life.”
Rigoberta’s friendliness always shines through at her concerts and yesterday was no different, telling how her appendix was removed in Aranda de Duero after a wedding. Turns out his vomiting had nothing to do with alcohol. In addition, she was so nice to present a new song that we are going to know “very soon.” The music is lentilla and the chords are somewhat dark, in keeping with the lyrics: “You never listened to the things I said, always thinking I was a poodle.”
After the bangs of ‘Ay Mamá’ and ‘Busco un centro de Gravidad Permanent’, the last thing I wanted to hear were the pre-‘Spanish Leather’ hits by Guitarricadelafuente. Their show continues to be between two very different worlds, although at first it may not seem like it, turning the flow of the concert into something totally irregular. I don’t understand why the banger of ‘Port Pelegrí’ is between ‘ABC’ and ‘Arabian Nights’, which is not to say that they are the busiest in their repertoire. It’s like going from 100 to 0 in a second. If we add to that a very improvable sound that spoiled the calmer moments and many unnecessary pauses between songs, it is clear that it was not Álvaro Lafuente’s big night.
The stage design, full of deformed mirrors, is practically the same as the one that took place at the Movistar Arena, but it is the only thing that remains from that great presentation. Guitarrica needs to take her mud pools and her colt marked with the album title to festivals. His first steps with the electric guitar, and the interpretations of ‘Full time papi’ or ‘BABIECA!’, very revitalized after the performance on Jimmy Kimmel, are very cool, but something else is missing from that sexual fantasy in which he shined so much.
What of rusowski I don’t know if he adheres to this, but it turned out to be the great show of the day. We were in need of seasoning and Mediavilla served it to us through a band full of backup singers and musicians with wigs and the most Gen Z memes you can imagine, from Italian brainrot to gigachad gorillas. In this context, in which the artist covers himself on songs like ‘SOPHIA’, converted into a romantic bachata, or ‘DAISY’, reimagined as a beautiful build up, it is funny that almost everything that appears on the screens is pure AI. The truth is that practically all of Rusowsky’s live songs are far superior to their studio versions, as if they had been finished being produced on the same stage.
For some reason, only the parts with the greatest hype, from ‘KINKI FÍGARO’ to ‘sukkKK!!’, were affected by technical problems that consisted of a brief, but total, stoppage of the music: “Aranda, I don’t know what’s happening with the sound,” rus blurted. At this point, it was already difficult to look bad and I still had several tricks up my sleeve: Ralphie Choo’s outing in ‘BBY ROMEO’, which at this rate it will be strange that they sing it separately; the beautiful Russia-IDK compilation video with ‘project tu culo’ and the power to lift an entire festival with ‘malibU’.
