2023-11-12 08:25:32
There were two especially decisive moments this Saturday in the Miribilla pavilion filled with 9,000 souls predisposed to happiness, at least 80% of them women. Two very communal moments that were the last song before the encore, ‘Marta has a pacemaker’, and the last of the concert, ‘Devuélveme a mi chica’ (aka ‘Sufre mamón’). In both songs the group fell silent or stopped, stopped playing, in the first after a recognizable roll and in the second after some identifiable twangs, and the people instantly started singing the lyrics at the top of their lungs. A letter that on the pacemaker’s screen was reproduced on the screen as a karaoke or teleprompter for the masses.
And the group stopped again once these songs had advanced, and there the happy crowd continued chanting. In one part of the meeting, leader David Summers said: «Our songs are always good vibes. So that listening to them makes you want to dance, to sing…” And yes, that happened from the first one on Saturday, the famous ‘Venezia’, opened by the Italic singing of drummer Javier Molina.
In total 26 songs were played in two hours and 18 minutes (138 minutes) of macro-concert. Outside there were six trailers parked and a double-decker bus, and inside the pavilion the stage had two side screens, another huge one at the top, and one more below. And Hombres G, who are four and who for 37 years have been traveling the world in a sextet with the same two reinforcements (the keyboardist Jason Paradise and the saxophonist Juan Muro, alias ‘Juanito el Piscinas’, who plays the role of Javi Alzola in Los Fitipaldis de Fito), in this ‘celebration of music and friendship’ (sic) tour of their 40th anniversary, travel with a quintuple string section and three extra brass, that is, 14 musicians in total play (4 of them , plus the keyboardist, plus 4 winds, plus 5 strings).
The repertoire is divided into four parts counting the encore. And the concert begins with images of their glorious first steps being presented on television by Abellán, Hermida, Joaquín Luqui, la Sardá, Ángel Casas… The most applauded was the incombustible Jordi Hurtado and, to finish, David’s father, the filmmaker and television producer Manolo Summers. This whole prologue looks like a fast-paced medley of ‘Cachitos’. Then, to allow time for two scene changes, congratulations from colleagues appeared on the screens. On the first occasion, Dani Martín, Bebe, Coti, Ana Torroja, Luz, Erentxun, Manolo García and someone else participated, and on the second, the Estefans, Calamaro, Bosé, Thalía, Luis Fonsi, or the most applauded Loquillo, Leiva, Alejandro Sanz and Sabina. Apart from the break before the encore, there were no more interludes and on top of that the leader David Summers spoke little between songs.
David Summers, the leader and spokesperson of the quartet. EITHER. AND.
The simple but effective songbook by Hombres G, which sounds a thousand times better live, harder and more authentic than on records, worked very well and despite the said simplicity of those compositions, the four Madrid friends achieved the connection of a large stadium . In a state of grace (David knows the lyrics by heart, he doesn’t use chops, and the three nuclear members are involved, from the smiling drummer Javier Molina to the two guitarists, Dani Mezquita and the more mobile or dynamic Rafa Gutiérrez), very inspired and in shape, sometimes overloaded with instrumentation that occasionally did not contribute much, perhaps achieving the two peaks in separate slow ones, one loving and soulful like ‘I love you’, and another with the fly behind the ear anticipating the signs of breakup of the couple in ‘Lo noto’, the G Men connected from start to finish with the pavilion and we are going to show it to you.
They opened with six songs played only by them, four on the edge of the big stage and with the drums also forward. The start with ‘Venezia’ lit the spark immediately and, after thanking David for coming, describing the atmosphere as “wonderful”, promising that we were going to have a “great time” (sic and with forgiveness), the singing voices and the standing stands continued pushing ‘Attack of the Crocodile Girls’, and having a great time in a couple of examples of casual good vibes such as the exotic and skatalitic ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ and the even more sarcastic ‘Indiana’.
Javier Molina in ‘Lawrence of Arabia’. EITHER. c.
The second chapter was nine songs, in nonet, with the reinforcements of the four brass and the keyboard player. They rocked out in style (‘I’m going to have a good time’, ‘Sueltate el pelo’, in which a bra was thrown at them from the ‘golden ring’, that is, the VIP area), they matched the Police (in the reggae ‘Chico, you have to take care of yourself’ and in the pop every breath of ‘If I don’t have you’), and they knew how to squeeze the pop with a hook in ‘Un pair of words’ and reach the climax of the evening with ‘I love you’, “a song that we haven’t stopped playing every night since we recorded it in 1986” (we had already heard him present it like this to David).
In the third chapter the appearance of the strings was surprising, but their sonic contribution was hard, not acoustic or delicate. He sounded so powerful that we thought of Iggy Pop during the last Azkena Rock Festival (where he went with jazzy brass, not strings, eh?). In this part ‘I need you’ was another example of magic and precision in stylistic concision (the beams of light converged on David as if he were Raphael and, before starting to sing it, Óscar Esteban commented that “Mikel Erentxun has an amazing version of this”). More soul with doubtful lyrics overflowed in ‘What am I to you?’; the ballad ‘Lo noto’ anticipated the tragedy (and although they have nothing to do with it stylistically, we think of ‘The plant that dies in the corner’ by Carolina Durante), and before the pop ‘Rowland’s corner’ David Summers said that “like all things that happen in Spain, this group started in a bar, the Rowland, which is still in the same place, with the same owners and the same decoration as then. The Rowland and us are the only things that haven’t changed. And this is the last song by Hombres G », he informed before playing it.
The four original members in the first batch. EITHER. AND.
And after saying that their songs want to convey the good vibes, they made ‘I feel good’ and finished the third part with two hilarious songs: the ska something Tequila ‘No te escaperás’ and the false goodbye with the community revelry of ‘Marta He has a pacemaker.’ And there were three left for the encore, the fourth part if you prefer: the piano-vocal duet ballad ‘Temblando’, the ska celebration of ‘Visite Nuestro Bar’ (which was the first song they dedicated to the Rowland bar), and the goodbye with ‘Sufre mamón’, after which Summers released: «Thank you, Bilbao, we had a great time. Guys, be good, we love you very much, take good care of yourselves, see you always, bye. Well, we’ll see each other on another tour, because the G Men will continue on the circuit without a doubt.
#Waste #good #vibes #Hombres #Miribilla