2 years, 27 days and 20 hours ago the world found out that it had to lock itself up. And we were here, in Buenos Aires,” he said. Adam Levineleader of Maroon 5, at the foot of the walkway that extended deep into the Campo Argentino de Polo. The show had already passed half of the repertoire and then the reference to that canceled recital finally arrived, the first in the entire Argentine quarantine. “We rescheduled for the same date the following year… and it was canceled again, damn it! [dijo en español]. We didn’t know if they were going to keep their tickets that long or if they were going to return them. Thanks for holding on. 2 years, 27 days and 20 hours passed.
But if the return had an air of revenge for Maroon 5, the epic and the solemnity would leave all the prominence to the celebration. In an hour and a half of show, the Californian quintet paraded their high-rotation hits as if it were all a party without too many qualms about the past or the future. “Moves Like Jagger”, with Levine in a backlight that lasted just a few verses, and “This Love” set the festive tone for a structured repertoire based on the classics that the group coined in the 21st century. Between the careful and neat sound of a band that can recover the most superficial crystallizations of funk, disco, rock and pop, and the always tight falsettos of its singer, the main strong point of the show was the support of a level of entertainment and intensity so no one gets bored.
And maybe that’s why George, the group’s last album, released in 2021, was just the excuse for a tour scheduled beforehand. “Beautiful Mistakes”, “Lost” and “Memories” (the latter already on the encores) were the songs chosen from the album to play controlled psychedelia, a resource -more visual than musical- that began with “Stereo Hearts”, with recreation of strobes and spots at the Roscharch’s test, always filtered by a benevolence that seems destined not to scare anyone. Maroon 5 was, on stage, a band that seemed to blur the lines between soft rock and power pop. And so Adam Levine moved as he pleased onstage, with his tireless charisma and his shirt off in a flash. in crescendo joint: the increasingly explicit charisma and the increasingly detached shirt.
Enrolled in the lineage of bands in the style of The Killers, Maroon 5 demonstrated at the Campo Argentino de Polo that their repertoire is already solid enough to last through a full show. The projections on the screens and the games of light, meanwhile, were much more a complement than a support. The focus never left Levine, who, aware of his role as a bandleader and not as a soloist, spared no praise for his companions, presented time and time again. And if the family tree of influences had to extend further back in time, The Police would be the root. “Maps” first and “Lost” later had the air, the inflections and, above all, the phrasing of Sting, as if it were almost a feat. tacit.
For Maroon 5, as a good band with pop voracity, anything goes when it comes to composing memorable choruses. Anything goes but identity is not negotiated. The songs sounded in the Campo Argentino de Polo with the same solvency as they do in formula radios, on a 15th birthday (“She Will Be Loved”) or in a Palermitan bowling alley (“Sugar”, the one in charge of closing the evening). Meanwhile, Levine raised a silk handkerchief that was thrown at him from the audience, warned his daughters who were watching via streaming that he was bringing them gifts, thanked the Argentine food and hospitality, and promised to return “whenever possible.” Always with a smile and a falsetto, his weapons to avoid all kinds of melancholy. Something that he has been doing since 2002, 2020 and also now 2022, having passed 2 years, 27 days and 20 hours of the pandemic that changed the world, but not pop or the desire to sing a hit out loud. And Maroon 5 knows it.