Nearly 52,000 people have attended WARM UP Estrella de Levante this year, seduced by the variety of a poster that included great national and international claims. Saturday offered an electronic main course with the set of Fatboy Slim, who only used a “pendrive” and did not play a single note live, as he jokingly suggested at one point in his show Ojete Calor, no one cared.
Cooler than Friday, the day would even get colder as the hours passed, making those of us who decided to wear less coat than necessary regret it because, after all, it was hot yesterday. Even during the day, La La Love You offered one of the most visually striking concerts of the day, since its stage – like the one they presented months ago at the Sant Jordi Club in Barcelona, the same day that Bad Gyal performed at the Palau – was presided over by a giant bubble with an alien head inside.
Structured around an alien invasion announced through a newsreel, the concert filled La La Love You’s repertoire of punk-pop anthems with color and sci-fi pulp-pop aesthetics, which, almost always assisted by that forced Dani Martín-like voice of David Merino, included versions of Nena Daconte and the Ramones, in addition to other hits such as ‘Los ojos, chica, no mienten’ or the more sentimental ‘Laponia’, which kept the type wonderfully until the arrival of ‘The End of the World’.
The staging was the best: apart from the alien newsreel structure, during the Ramones cover, Merino surfed the audience inside a bubble, Flaming Lips style, but in a punk style. Afterwards, two “heroes” taken from the audience armed with silver backpacks tried to save the audience from the alien invasion. The “end of the world” was inevitable, in a double sense.
During the set of La La Love You I escaped in time to catch ‘The End of the World’ afterwards and see The Petuniaswho sounded invigorated and very Ramonian presenting the songs from their latest EP. In addition, they debut a Murcian drummer, so now there are four members. Their punk-rock guitars and the melodies of ‘SHHH!!!’ couldn’t roar any more. or ‘Stories of my mother’ convey more self-confidence, while some lyrics pointed out the slimy guys. Product of “what happens when they ignore you as a child”, ‘I don’t need to be alone (I’ve been alone all my life)’ was one of the featured songs until the closing with the cry “uh ah, Marcelo Criminal”.
In the middle of the sunset the set could not have been better placed. Carlos Areswhich brings together a notable audience, also captivated by its melodic intensity and by a live proposal that hybridizes folk and rock, propelled by a large band of musicians that includes acoustic guitars, violins, pianos, occasional flashes of jazz and melodies such as ‘Aqui Still’ or ‘La boca del lobo’, with many options to become classic and timeless. The image of the stage is beautiful: Carlos Ares leads a classic folk-rock band, all the musicians dress according to the aesthetic proposal, and the staging simulates a stone cabin that responds to the rural aesthetic of all his albums.
The small stage reserved for emerging artists – which opens during the afternoon with Hadren’s electronic set – offers the colorful and humorous counterpoint of FADESdeploying its protesting queer amateur techno-pop, differentiating itself with a proposal that combines superpop choreographies with explicitly political lyrics against mass tourism, fascism and “for the Catalan Countries.” The Mallorcan trio addresses the Murcian public at all times in Catalan, questioning the heavyweights on the networks who get angry when they hear Catalan because they say it is not understood, and making the staff laugh, including the photographer taking photos on the side, with rhymes like “mallorquina, puta y fina”, from their next unreleased song.
With the night already settled comes the first international highlight of the night with the geometric post-punk of Bloc Partywho are playing for the first time in a long time, according to their leader Kele Okereke. They bring a very clean and crystalline sound, and overcome some technical problems with Kele’s pedals, who appears angry and frustrated at several moments of the show, although always managing to solve the problems quickly. The attendance goes crazy with ‘Banquet’ or ‘Helicopter’, but it must be said that the new songs sound great, especially that ‘Love Bombs’ with Kele on vocals, and in fact we must highlight Kele’s clean and powerful vocal projection, also evident in ‘This Modern Love’; Of course, as a vocalist he deserves greater recognition.
Kele, who does not remember the last time Bloc Party performed in Spain, is forced to try to encourage an audience that is at times not too effusive – a problem that Russowsky will also have later – perhaps as a result of fatigue from the previous day. Perhaps because the new songs are not yet known – they have not yet been released – and although the dance-rock of ‘Traps’ fills the place with energy, the popularity of ‘Banquet’ or the final ‘Ratchet’ far surpasses it.
I didn’t imagine that Freddie Mercury would be so present at WARM UP, but hours before Fatboy Slim starts his show with a piece of ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’, Butthole Heat They do the same with a fragment of ‘Barcelona’ played at full blast. The idea – which decontextualizes a Catalan anthem – puts on a plate Ojete Calor’s comic proposal, already so accepted on a popular scale in all its absurdity that we sometimes forget how intelligent his lyrics really are. And just as fun are their introductions and politically incorrect expressions, from “Murcia, how horrible you are”, underlining the “aroma” of marijuana in the venue, to outbursts the size of joking about wishing for the death of Quevedo, whom they sampled a while before.
Always playing with the limits of humor, Ojete Calor want you to understand that nothing they say is so serious, much less when they joke that Murcian is so difficult to understand that it seems like its own language or when they take advantage of the fact that they play some guitar chords to laugh at Fatboy Slim’s supposed David Guetta non-direct: “We’ve seen their team: it’s a pendrive.” His jokes about Down syndrome make him a little more uncomfortable, but I guess it’s within what’s expected. Their references to Aitana’s choreographies or pickpockets are more cool, laughing at the delirious Barcelona case when they describe pickpockets stealing from each other.
Of course, the show by Carlos Areces and Aníbal Gómez goes beyond being a humorous monologue: regardless of how effective and hilarious the choruses and technopop rhythms of ‘Extremismo mal’, ‘Vintage’ or ‘Gilipó’ are, they are both very charismatic as masters of ceremonies, something evident if you look beyond their absurd outfits. The show leaves performative moments as cool as the screen-synchronized choreography of the Mario Bros from ‘Vintage’ or the smoke gun attack from ‘Mocatriz’, which certainly cannot be considered a joke.
The weak point of the show is a session of pop classics that includes everything from rancheras to Raffaella Carrà, from Camilo Sesto to the aforementioned Quevedo, but more or less when Concha Velasco arrives it becomes eternal. On the one hand, the versions fulfill a certain mission of Ojete Calor as festival entertainers dedicated to parody (giving the public what they supposedly want without further ado; entertaining from the most obvious). On the other hand, a reduced version of this section and more of our own repertoire would be appreciated, if there is anything.
The fatigue from Friday to Saturday certainly does not affect the public of Lori Meyerswho lives absolutely dedicated to the deployment of the Granada band’s indie hits, now timeless, from ‘ Hacerte Fly ‘ to ‘ Luces de Neón ‘. The ocean of people singing the group’s songs seems immense, and if anyone dares to say that Lori Meyers’ live performance has been the same for a while now, Antonio López’s group “Noni” decides to start their show -decorated with their usual big screens- with a completely new song, ‘En lo total’, released a few weeks ago and which previews their next album. Although only five years have passed since ‘Make you fly’, one of her recent classics, so, in any case, Lori Meyers’ ability to continue delivering new songs that conquer her massive audience should be highlighted.
Partially overlapping with Lori, Long live Belgrade The small stage also falls short, at least after seeing the fury they display live. They play the guitar as if they were not the ones who dominate it, but rather it who owns them, while their emotional hardcore sounds perfectly oiled in great songs like “Vernissage”, crossed by a vocoder filter in an afterlife register, or “Chekhov and the seagulls”. In front of a screen that reads the motto “Poetic, political and a little spiritual,” the group raises an overwhelming and thunderous guitar gale, with Cándido Gálvez’s screamo in top form. Despite a hesitant start, anyone who stayed to see them left without a trace of disappointment.
Continue delivering musical quality rusowskiin all the collage and kitsch aspect of ‘DAISY’. However, their set at WARM UP is somewhat lackluster due to the darkness of the stage, the lack of guest artists and the poor reaction of an audience that celebrates and applauds, but not with the expected enthusiasm. In fact, Rusowsky – who appears with his band in a wig – has to make an effort to cheer up the audience at various points, even joking that they should stop taking a nap because it’s time to have a good time. Their Las Ketchup samples, their urban rhythms and above all their Latin incursions, especially ‘Malibu’, manage to make people vibrate where the Travis Scott-like beats of ‘KINKI FÍGARO’ or the batucada of ‘PINK + PINK’ don’t do so much, while ballads like ‘Baby Romeo’ provide the tender counterpoint before the makinera whiplash of ‘Valentino Rossi’. The amateur aesthetic of the visuals adds to the peculiarity of the show, although perhaps in another time it would have looked better.
Just when the big name of the day is about to begin, Fatboy Slima few drops begin to fall on La Fica that threaten to make the WARM UP wetter than expected.
Luckily, the drops don’t get worse and the festival goers can close their day with the electronic session of Fatboy Slim, who I don’t know if he plays live or simulates it, but he releases some beats to drop dead, creating an atmosphere of pure electronic danger that, between references to acid, sin or those bad habits alluded to in ‘Role Model’, shows that the DJs we met in the 90s know how to start a rave like few others. In this case, also using Eminem samples and visuals that reproduce faces of famous people like Basquiat or Blondie. One of the moments that involves the audience makes us bend down and repeat that we are not sinners, but winners. Quentin Leo Cook gives you electronics that break the ground, to – as Lori Meyers sing – make you fly.
