2023-12-23 15:07:50
Raphael’s last working week has been very intense in this dying 2023. Last Saturday he filled Madrid’s WiZink Center with 12,000 souls (it was WiZink’s 1,000th concert since it was reopened in 2005!), and this Friday he closed in Zaragoza, before some 3,333 souls, the year of his ‘Victoria’ tour, which is what the star calls staying in the musical spotlight for more than 60 years and what is the title of his latest official LP, released in 2022 and composed by Pablo López.
In between, on Monday he went on the television program ‘El hormiguero’ to promote his new album, ‘Victoria Tour Edition’, a compilation with the 30 songs that are played on this tour (“an album for the youngest that shows the Raphael of today with songs from before”, and he says this because they are re-arranged and sound the same as live), and to announce the next round of concerts on the 2024 tour, which will start at the end of February. In this endless tour, like Bob Dylan’s, in addition to three trips to America (to the USA as well), Raphael will make three more passes through Spain, starting on May 18 in San Sebastián (Kursaal), and arriving in Bilbao at the end. of the year (Saturday, November 16 in Miribilla; tickets from 36.90 to 82.50). From Madrid upwards, excluding Barcelona, there is nothing more announced. I hope dates are added in Logroño or Burgos, for example at parties: in the afternoon Roca Rey and in the evening Raphael, can you imagine?
But let’s not daydream. This one in Zaragoza has been the fourth time that we have enjoyed Raphael on the ‘Victoria’ tour, after those in Bilbao on November 18, 2022 (one of the best of the year, and we titled it ‘Ovationed 25 times by 4,500 souls’), Torrelavega this August (4,000 spectators, most of them standing, which is not usual for the artist) and Pamplona this November (in front of 3,200 souls). And the 3,333 souls of Zaragoza this Friday enjoyed as always the 31 songs that were played in two hours and a quarter, 134 minutes finished off with an a cappella coda because the respectable person insisted on asking for another one and the star reappeared to sing in Spanish a fragment of the Sinatrian ‘My way’, that’s nothing.
Gesturing in the first, ‘The Night’ by Adamo. Oscar Cubillo
The show was spectacular, with two light cannons focused directly on Raphael, and the giant screens in the background fearlessly showing him in facial close-ups, amalgamating long, lush hair and the natural wrinkles of someone who is 80 years old. Sometimes you could notice him looking at the lyrics on the teleprompter, especially the new ones, like ‘Olvídale’, which he sang live for the second time after premiering it on Wizink last week and which comes on the new album ‘Victoria tour edition’, It is one of three unreleased cuts.
At the head of his large band of thirteen members (three winds, three backup singers, two keyboards, drums and percussion, two electric guitars!, plus bass), fourteen on stage including him, the always unpredictable Raphael stood out extremely, superhuman, supernatural in three pieces, that is, a trinity: the melodic soul of ‘Amor mio’, which went from the tenuous to the colossal, which seemed to have emerged from the catacombs; the swing ‘Wonderful Heart’, optimistic and as colorful and contagious as the sad movie ‘The Umbrellas of Cherbourg’, a swing in gradation a la ‘Mackie The Razor’ but without bad vibes; or the brilliant and communion ‘Estar amor’, a cañí soul in which he sang “being in love is… contemplating life from above…”.
Raphael sometimes left a verse in the middle and the audience finished it. Or he laughed like a madman. Or he made gestures of contempt, either at him in ‘Frente almirro’, where he acted as if in a musical, or in those of the brutal in every sense ‘A que no te vas’, with rock power and contempt like “a que You continue like a dog there by my side until I say ‘now!’ It’s incredible about Raphael, and those who see him for the first time immediately become fans, for example Fran (“but where did this guy come from!”), Azpiazu (“when this guy is gone there is no one who can happen”), or Óscar Esteban (“a professional like the top of a pine tree, not much of a joke”). You are there in your seat, the band plays an introduction, the smiling and almost proud singer comes out to applause, and tears your soul apart like a madman singing ‘The Night’, just like that as soon as he comes out, and he laughs stammering, and you leaves you amazed. How big. Very brave, as one shouted from the stands.
Raphael gave an incredible concert, better in the second part than in the first (with more electronic fragments for youth festivals and a couple of very hard and even rock songs, although his audience did not seem to mind and started chanting up to three times. oé-oé-oé occasions, like the heavies). Raphael spoke only three times, and in the farewell he said more or less what he does everywhere, that it is wonderful to return to the city in question, that we the public, the Raphaelites, remain the same but with more enthusiasm, and this is the occasion He blurted out, “Zaragoza, I love you so much, so much, so much… Good night,” and made an exit that he was forced to rectify several times.
And let’s review more great moments: ‘I’m still that one’ was a totally light song, ‘I’m loving you so much’ was absolute drama, in ‘I was in love’ he was equal to Tom Jones, ‘Verére a reborn’ was Frenched to him (this is the from “from childhood to affairs”, which he finished by singing “since I was 16 singing songs like this”), ‘I want to die’ by Francis Cabrel went further than its reduced format promised, ‘The drummer’ was the best Christmas carol possible (although the lights did not illuminate the entire pavilion, as they did in a fascinating way last year in Miribilla), ‘En carne viva’ improved without allegorical screens that looked like they were from Masterchef, ‘I am that one’ was reclaiming himself, and ‘Como yo te amo’ by Rocío Jurado was an ending (false, remember ‘My way’) that always falls short because we think it can be lengthened.
Let’s see when is the next time we can see the teacher…
#Raphael #closes #year #Victory #Zaragoza