By day, Aranda de Duero fills with music, water pistols, and calimocho. Barry B, as the first surprise of Plaza del Trigo in this edition, witnessed it there in his hometown. By night, Sonorama Ribera keeps humming at full blast in the main venue, where yesterday it hosted three big headliners: Rigoberta Bandini, Guitarricadelafuente, and rusowsky.
With Rvfv closing the night, it was clear that this was a day aimed at the younger audience. Similar to the day when artists as contrasting as Hombres G and YSY A were programmed two years ago, yesterday everything began with performances by Ramoncín and Nacho Vegas. The set of the legendary singer-songwriter climbed from low to high, both in the audience’s response and in the arrangements of the songs.
The “shalalas” of ‘El hombre que casi conoció a Michi Panero’ sparked the first tangible reactions from an audience that seemed astonished at every moment. At first, Vegas’s stage presence could be mistaken for apathy, but it quickly becomes clear that he is completely immersed in his show. ‘La gran broma final’ and ‘La pena o la nada’, with a well-deserved ovation halfway through, were the most enjoyable songs. Above all, the concert ended in grand fashion with a brutal guitar solo accompanied by Vegas’s theremin, which, more than playing an instrument, seemed to be conjuring spells with his hands.
Before the mainstream explosion, which would keep the general public in the same spot for nearly 3 hours, exploring the smaller stages was utterly worthwhile after the shows by Vera Fauna and El Nido. The cool, fresh, feel-good rock of the former convinced from the start, but it didn’t shine as it should due to a series of problems the band was honest about: “We’ve run into a small technical issue, but, has anyone noticed?” Moments earlier, a phone rose above the crowd with the message: “THE SOUND IS REGULAR,” aimed at the tech booth. Up to that moment, a guitar could barely be heard and the voices of the members didn’t quite mesh as they should. Yet they soon grew even bigger with the summery ‘Tu Voz’ and ‘No Me Digas La Verdad’.
The story of El Nido is also one of success, being one of the groups that has moved from Sonorama’s daytime lineup to the Plaza del Trigo and the main venue. I saw them last year at the Clamores venue, on a tiny stage, and I imagined as many members as La M.O.D.A., but there are actually only five. They do share with that band that they’re from Burgos and that they thrive wherever they go. However, El Nido does not blur their Castilian roots with touches of pop rock, neither in the compositions nor in the choice of instruments—nothing common. If you love jotas and music with a Castilian flavor, you’ll adore them. If not, you’d be waiting a good hour to see Rigoberta Bandini’s belly up close.
Being pregnant again, the Catalan artist cannot move too much. That is why the strength of her show lies in the human connection. The key to this is the camera Paula Ribó has integrated into her microphone, gifting us with a close-up of her face that is as intimate as it is hilarious. Likewise, her dancers and backing singers play a crucial role in keeping the concert dynamic, which is achieved for most of it.
The moment of ‘Amore Amore Amore’ gifting wine shots to the crowd is very sweet, but it ends up dragging on a bit too long. On the other hand, it’s impossible not to be fully immersed during the Massiel cover of ‘El amor’ or when Rigoberta appears defeated on the floor while singing “you shouldn’t have mixed me with alcohol” in ‘Siete días’. The guy behind me didn’t need that much, insisting that the line “I don’t know how to even fry an egg” in ‘Canciones de amor a ti’ represents “my whole life.”
Rigoberta’s warmth typically shines in her concerts, and yesterday was no exception, recounting how she had her appendix removed in Aranda de Duero after a wedding. It turns out her vomiting had nothing to do with alcohol. She was also so kind as to introduce a new song that we’ll hear “very soon.” The music is mellow and the chords are somewhat dark, in keeping with the lyrics: “You never heard the things I said, always thinking I was a poodle.”
After the thundering numbers of ‘Ay Mamá’ and ‘Busco un centro de gravedad permanente’, the last thing I wanted to hear were the pre‑Spanish Leather hits from Guitarricadelafuente. His show remains balanced between two very different worlds, though at first glance it doesn’t seem so, turning the concert’s flow into something entirely irregular. I don’t understand why the banger of ‘Port Pelegrí’ sits between ‘ABC’ and ‘Mil y una noches’, which aren’t the most energetic of his repertoire. It’s like jumping from 100 to 0 in a second. If you add a sound that is far from ideal, which spoiled the calmer moments, and many unnecessary pauses between songs, it’s clear that it wasn’t the great night for Álvaro Lafuente.
The stage design, filled with distorted mirrors, is nearly the same as the one that took the Movistar Arena there, but it’s the only element that remains from that grand debut. Guitarrica needs to take his mud pools and the horse marked with the album’s title to the festivals. His experiments with the electric guitar, and the performances of ‘Full time papi’ or ‘BABIECA!’, reawakened, especially after the Jimmy Kimmel appearance, are very cool, but it’s missing more of that sexual fantasy in which he shone so brightly.
What about rusowsky? I’m not sure it adheres to this, but it turned out to be the great show of the day. We were craving flavor, and Mediavilla served it through a band full of backing vocalists and musicians with little hairdos and the most Gen Z memes you can imagine, from Italian brainrot to gorilla gigachads. In this vein, where the artist reinterprets himself in tracks like ‘SOPHIA’, turned into a romantic bachata, or ‘DAISY’, reimagined as a lovely build-up, it is funny that nearly everything appearing on the screens is pure AI. The truth is that almost all of rusowsky’s live versions are far superior to their studio versions, as if they were completed on the very same stage.
For some reason, only the peak moments, from ‘KINKI FÍGARO’ to ‘sukkKK!!’, were affected by technical issues consisting of a brief, total halt in the music: “Aranda, I don’t know what’s going on with the sound,” rus said. At this point, it was already hard to miss, and there were still several aces up his sleeve: Ralphie Choo’s exit in ‘BBY ROMEO’, which at this pace would be strange if they sang it separately; the beautiful Russia-IDK montage video with ‘project tu culo’ and the power to lift a festival entirely with ‘malibU’.
