Alcalá Norte is a case in point. One has gone to hundreds and hundreds of concerts, and the Madrid group, one of the clearest revelations of the season, knows how to offer things that have never been seen before. To begin with, before the show, his Forocoches thread is projected on a screen. There we read what people think of the band. “They look like Smashing Pumpkins” writes someone completely clueless. It’s just one of the fun messages: rarely have the minutes before a concert been so entertaining.
Afterwards, it is drummer Jaime Barbosa himself, who goes directly to the microphone to do the honors of introducing the band. He encourages people, throws cigars and distributes wine through a boot that rolls around the room.
The singer Álvaro Rivas does not like to interact so much, he limits himself to looking at people with that disturbing smile, part of the character who has written those lyrics about the disastrous world in which we live. Of course he wears a Real Madrid shirt. They joke about Barça.
The Madrid group overcomes in one way or another having to fill more than an hour of concert with just one album and so short. They also take help from versions, such as ‘10000’ by Los Planetas, revealing that Jota had given them “permission to do with her whatever they wanted.”
Despite the two sold outs several months in advance that the group has achieved this weekend at Teatro Eslava, it is difficult for the public to enter, perhaps because the hall is not very grateful to full houses: a part is always left out. the track. I expected more delirium, more pogo. Jaime Barbosa even exclaims: “Give him a little effort, damn it!” ‘The Poor’s Blood’, which plays in 7th place, is the first song that the public seems to really enjoy, even though the brutal ‘420N’ has been played before, which I would have sworn would wake up a dead man.
‘The King of the Jews’ is another of the most sung songs, with permission from ‘The Cannon Life’, which they obviously leave for last. It’s a very short song, which became even shorter and could have been lengthened by 10 minutes. But Alcalá Norte prefer to be faithful to their sound on the album.
Someday their live shows will be better, more roaring, perhaps when they finish this 40-concert tour, when they have more repertoire, but they can boast of leaving several memorable images: like when Rivas sings ‘La calle elfo’ with a crown of laurels (Jaime he trolls her by offering to cook a chicken in pepitoria with her) or when he disguises himself as a rider to deliver real burgers that people devour.