With a pandemic and all, one of the triumphant returns of 2020 was that of Níquel, the band led by Jorge Nasser, who did his thing for two nights in November at the Sodre Auditorium, 20 years after having released their latest album, Living proof (2000), and then dissolve. Now, those who missed it will be able to savor it and those who were will relive it, since a few days ago the concert was uploaded in full to YouTube and also as a disc to Spotify (with the name Live in the Auditorium).
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At this point, it is not necessary to clarify it, but if you were born in the 21st century or earlier but lived in a bubble –in the precovid sense of the term–, it is worth saying that Níquel was the most popular rock band in Uruguay in the first half of the 90s –and much of the second, in conflict with El Cuarteto de Nos–. It made its way to the masses of pure rock without turns, filling the Summer Theater with acoustic and symphonic shows, and was a pioneer in several of the “goals” that would later be set by so many vernacular mass bands.
The return did not have Pablo Faragó, the Argentine guitarist who co-founded the group, because he simply did not want to participate in the return, so Níquel 2020 son Nasser (voice and guitar, almost always, Fender Telecaster), Pablo duck Dana (bass and backing vocals), Wilson Negreyra (percussions and voice), Roberto Rodino (drums), Gonzalo de Lizarza (guitar), Daniel Loncha González (guitar and backing vocals) and Pablo Gómez (keyboards and backing vocals).
“I will arrive like lightning, / as a necessary evil. / I will come down from a planet, / without disguise without a mask ”is the first thing that comes out of Nasser’s mouth. These are the verses that start the burning “Lluvia de amor”, original from the album Gargoland I (1990), and that although he speaks of love, in that of walking “without a costume or mask” shows something of the essence of Nasser and his band. “I was a basic guy, a neighborhood madman, a football madman, so the musical pilcha that I was going to was direct rock, and the speech accompanies that,” the singer had said in an interview with the daily before the return, in reference to the music and the lyrics of “Crazy Worm”.
Is nothing
Gargoland was originally published between 1990 and 1991, as two separate albums (numbered I and II, of course), of eighteen songs, respectively, and in later editions on CD – the first, from 1992 – they were merged into a single album of 18 tracks. That album turned out to be the band’s most popular and best. Not surprisingly, of the 15 songs that were included in this live record, five are from that album (although one of them, “Héroes porteños”, appeared for the first time on Nickel, the group’s record debut, 1988). On top of that, they had the luxury of leaving out a couple of round rock and roll –in the sense of complete, well-achieved, without relation to the Indio Solari band– of Gargoland, like “What’s your problem?” and, precisely, “Rock & Roll”.
Níquel returned to the ring two decades after he stopped playing, meaning that the band was more years apart than together. The return could smell of nostalgia or, even worse, in the absence of Faragó, one could run the risk –as has happened, especially with foreign bands– that it would sound like a group that is covering and paying homage to itself.
But not. Nasser is still Nasser and Nickel is still Nickel, although the six strings of Faragó are no longer there. The band sounds very compact and oiled, and when comparing some of the performances with those of the studio records, there really aren’t many differences, beyond those inherent in the environment or more technical issues. For example, on “Nancy & Sid” there is an almost religious respect for the original arrangements – the melodic guitar picks here and there and the pop choirs.
But not everything is just rock. One of the high points of the album (video, show, etc.) is the reggae version of “Héroes porteños” (as was the original, included in the group’s debut album, and not the hurried version of Gargoland), with the stellar presence of Estela Magnone –if alliteration is allowed–. There’s also room to slow down even more with two songs that Nickel originally recorded on the album. I love this place (1994): “Ballad of the lost hearts” and the famous version in code power ballad from “Palabras para Julia” (poem by the Spanish José Agustín Goytisolo, set to music and performed by his compatriot Paco Ibáñez, despite the Spotify credits, which are less reliable than the musqueta game, it is stated that it was composed by Nasser) .
“Some nights, milonga and rock and roll, / some nights of light”, Nasser sings in the hit riffero “Living proof” when the show nears the end, and thus shows that not everything is exactly the same as 20 years ago. that the original verse reads: “Some nights of wine and rock and roll” … Of course, at the last of the concert, “Candombe de la Aduana”, not a comma was changed, neither in the lyrics nor in the music. Hymns are respected.
Live in the Auditorium. Nickel. On Youtube and Spotify.
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