The most memorable moments of Sonorama Ribera’s final day have poured into emotion and memory, especially for Robe, with everything converging on Leiva’s grand concert.
The eve of the festival’s most anticipated show of the entire 29th edition already hinted at part of its content. Just like last year, the names of everyone involved in organizing the event were projected on the screens before proceeding with the impressive drones display to the tune of ‘Si te vas’. Robe’s eyes lit up the sky over Aranda, surrounded by a blooming tree. Soon after, the word “ALWAYS” appeared adorned with all kinds of flags, from Palestinian to LGTBIQ+.
Surely the legendary Extremoduro composer was also paying close attention to the interpretation of one of his greatest songs during Leiva’s set, which dared to deliver a solo version, just him and a guitar, of ‘El hombre pájaro’.
“I’ve never played this song and I’ve never found the right moment. He was so good that his compositions were very complex, yet they seemed simple. I have considered singing it many times, but I always backed away right on stage,” Leiva revealed before silencing the 40,000 attendees present. He also apologized in advance and warned that there was a possibility of making a mistake or of stopping the song midway. It wasn’t just a technical challenge, but an emotional one. Without being Robe or pretending to be him, Leiva gifted the festival’s great moment.
That this track appeared on the setlist was surely connected to the confession he shared moments earlier: “I’ve had a horrible day, slept terribly from nerves,” he stated. It’s clear that for the rest of the set that wasn’t the case. Leiva is an artist who, at this stage, is more than established as part of the recent history of Spanish rock. To get a sense of the Madrid-born musician’s spectacular catalog of hits, one only has to know that ‘Terribly Cruel’ was played 15 minutes into his set. Followed were ‘Superpoderes’, ‘Breaking Bad’, ‘Pienso en aquella tarde’, ‘No te preocupes por mí’… And the list goes on.
Beyond the hits, which he closed the show with the biggest anthems of Pereza and ‘Como si fueras a morir mañana’, you have to see Leiva to grasp the mastery he wields on stage. He is backed by a rock band with winds and his brother, Juancho of Sidecars, handling most of the guitar solos. That said, he also proved during ‘Flecha’ that he is a true ‘guitar hero’. One also realizes the scale of his solo career, capable of delivering a superb rock concert with a bit of everything. If his collaboration with Elsa y Elmar is a disco-leaning experiment, ‘Como lo tienes tú’ allows a collective throwback in its final seconds to The Beatles’ ‘Hey Jude’.
Leiva was the perfect culmination of a day that began with Valeria Castro and , with both artists delivering two shows that were very different in form and content, yet strikingly similar in their extremely high quality. The Catalan pop star presents a performance milimetrically measured, fluid and rhythmic, and it never feels pre-fabricated in any way. It has everything you would expect from a pop concert—choreographies, hype, karaoke moments—but all of it is delivered with superior grace, starting with Aguilera’s imposing voice. This voice shines especially in ‘Soledad’, greatly aided by the strings accompanying her.
While Belén navigated at every moment between vocal virtuosity and more forward-thinking pop, Castro stood stoically in the realm of heartfelt emotion. With infectious energy from the moment she stepped on stage, the Canarian artist conveyed gratitude with every facial expression. The very expressions, joined by her immaculate voice, are what evoke a feeling hard to put into words: “I’ve seen some faces crying and I feel I must be the festival’s sensitive one,” she joked with humor. Not to mention the merit of her own compositions, played live with clarinet, violin, keyboards, drums and guitar. The combination of all these elements is capable of producing the greatest moments in me and in the audience around me, some drying their tears and others on the verge of tears at the end of the performance of ‘guerrera’.
La M.O.D.A. were the day’s secondary protagonists, even though today they have triumphed high across the Plaza del Trigo, also with Leiva in attendance. David Ruiz explained at the festival’s press conference that being on the big stage that night as the headliner’s warm-up act is a testament to their career. The first time they performed at Sonorama Ribera was in 2011, for “30 people”: “We’ve been moving through all the stages, winning over the audience one by one, helped by word of mouth,” he recalled.
If they pulled it off, it’s due to the great consistency of their concerts, never taking a misstep with their anthems and often lending their space to causes that almost no other artist would raise on the biggest stage of Sonorama. If at Río Babel they defended public education, on this occasion they wanted to dedicate ‘Campo Amarillo’ to encourage those who can to allocate “more resources and more money to what happens every summer in our land,” to prevent it from burning, fading, and being abandoned. Performed almost a capella, with a very light guitar and a sighing accordion, it was the perfect counterpoint to the castellano fiesta that filled the rest of the concert. What happened with ‘Héroes del Sábado’ was entirely true.
