There is a scene in ‘Amélie’, the 2000s classic by Jean-Pierre Jeunet, in which the narrator wonders how many couples are orgasming at the same moment in Paris. And the character played by Audrey Tautou replies that it’s 15. I remembered last night this bit of silliness while watching Guitarricadelafuente’s ultra-sexualized show before 15,000 people who had tickets sold out weeks in advance. We first met Álvaro Lafuente as a boy as sweet and naïve as Amélie Poulain, extraordinarily shy, barely able to finish a sentence in interviews.
Little by little he has shed his inhibitions to deliver in his set “the soul to voluptuousness,” to a degree that even Bad Gyal with her twerking would look tame. I would say that, during the first half of his concert, inside Movistar Arena alone, there were well over 30 people orgasming at once.
The first thing shown on screens around 21:10 was a shot of the artist’s boots offstage being cleaned by someone. Guitarricadelafuente then hopped to a stage prepared with faux grass and sand, just so he could frolic on the floor whenever he wished.
In one moment someone placed the microphone low in such a way that he had to lean slightly to sing. He performed a track shirtless. The camera approached so close that it captured every bead of sweat, hell, even his boogers. He launched flames on several tracks, warning that he wanted to burn people “the eyelashes.” One would feel a certain sense of embarrassment for not having been a teenager in Madonna’s Sex era. It’s possible that one has never seen a show so sexual, headlined by a man. Especially one so elegant, with a carefully crafted stage design that did not overdose on color, focusing on golds and chiaroscuro.
Guitarricadelafuente’s onstage presence has grown by leaps and bounds. What we witnessed last night in Madrid was the end of the tour for ‘Spanish Leather’: even the album’s title said it all, not to mention the earlier videos that had begun to shape his new image. Lafuente presented this album with a track called ‘Full Time Papi’ — the first to sound last night — and the best that can be said after 70 weeks on the Spanish charts is that he has achieved it. He will turn 30 next year, and one day more than a “twink” will be a “twunk.” He still retains some shyness, and his remarks are limited to phrases like “thank you, Madrid” or showing how thrilled he is to have the crowd’s blessing. But it is precisely the audience’s goodwill that ends up elevating the set, with everyone singing along to every lyric, and the show proving to be quite varied: gays, straights, the young, not-so-young, couples, groups of friends…
To talk about all forms, Samantha Hudson was also there, appearing via video call. If a couple of songs earlier you had wondered why Guitarricadelafuente did not reference the housing protests during the ‘Puerta del Sol’ performance, the truth is that she had prepared a collaboration with the activist, who explained that she was suffering “mucho fomo” about missing the concert but was camping in Sol, eliciting cheers from the crowd. She urged people to join the march that will wind from four points of the capital toward Cibeles this Saturday at midday. Guitarrica did not take a political stance, but gave voice to someone who can do it very well.
Also shown was a sequence of familiar faces like Miguel Bernardeau dancing among the audience, and one cannot ignore that the show benefited from impeccable timing. La bola negra, Calvo and Ambrossi’s film in which he stars, is an unprecedented box-office success. And the performance of ‘La nieve’, the main theme, was one of the night’s most emotional moments. The edit between live footage taken at the venue and clips from the film featuring him was notable. As soon as the trumpet from the poster appeared on the screens, the crowd began to scream. For the song’s finale, a lighting sequence had been devised in which his figure turned black, vanished into the darkness, completely still, as if waiting to be shot. It was deeply moving.
What this translates to is that, beyond hedonistic moments, the concert offered tender ones. Like when he performed ‘Tramuntana’ on a second-floor portion of the stage that had been hidden, or when, after everyone had sung the final track, ‘BABIECA!’, with the lights on, he chose to perform another song. Normally he had been accompanied by a band, with a modern production, but at that moment he returned to being “Guitarrica” to sing solo ‘Sixtina in’. The young man from Benicàssim explained that it is very hard for him to say goodbye and thus he wanted to sing that piece as a farewell. It was one of those moments that, although not the most complex or elaborated theatrically, will not be forgotten. The artist, fully comfortable in the moments most connected to the soul, and also in the others. 9.
