It is said that two heads are better than one. This is not a rule, of course. But it also cannot be said that there is only one head generating ideas for a music show and that by adding another, things will turn out better. There can be a dozen (and more too) to produce a recital. Let’s say that here there are two heads that think more than one (those of Abel Pintos y Luciano Pereyra) and many others behind, in their production teams. So that? To plan the joint show that those two heads had been chewing on for a while.
How to set the scene, what topic to start with. Every detail counts. The topic to start was easy to resolve because having released a song together a couple of months ago, the pole position to start this concert saga was already predestined. “It is now”, It is the beginning of the show and the song that gave the show its title.
They thought of a 360° stage that, except on boxing nights, not even those with memory remember having seen in the Luna Park. With a small circular stage in the center (there is barely room for the two of them), they go out into the ring, while the band plays from under one of the Pullmans. A few meters above the duo, a screen shows, at the beginning, images of each one, from their childhood to their consecration. Then it rises a little higher and hovers above their heads.
The repertoire is a back and forth between Luciano’s songs and Abel’s; sometimes they share them, sometimes they lend them to each other for a while. After two or three powerful songs, they begin to move through the twenty that remain in those two hours of the show. In “How I miss you” they make a semi-acoustic beginning, with their voices and Abel’s guitar. For “So and so” it is Luciano who grabs the viola. At the other end are the musicians. Strange is this approach of having 11 instrumentalists and no drummers or percussionists in sightin that same set.
Luciano Pereyra, in the first of the shows he shares with Abel Pintos, at Luna ParkCAMILA GODOY/ AFV
The scenario brings together diverse ideas. From 360° of Peter Gabriel onwards (pioneer in so many technological resources for the scene) and the circles of reflectors, in the style Pink Floyd in the nineties. There is also something from the last show that Roger Waters he did in the “sands” of Europe (not the one he brought to Argentina). Although Waters’s is in the shape of a cross and Abel and Luciano’s has a flattened oval format to stretch on the sides of the stadium. The protagonists are almost always in the center and move along the catwalks to focus on the audience in the stands. They arrive dressed in black and with some sparkles, each in their own style. Abel with a more classic rocker outfit (imitation leather jacket, metals on the belt, achupinado and boots). Luciano in the eighties and elegant line that is fashionable today and that the singer usually prefers for his recitals.
After a few songs, the usual greetings arrive. “Good evening Buenos Aires. Thank you very much to everyone who came from different parts of Argentina and other countries,” Luciano will say. “We have more than 25 years of respect and shared things. “None of this would exist if they had not accompanied us in these 25 years,” Abel will add.
A while later Luna will burst with the song “Motivos”. And in that show of songs, Abel chooses “Your pain” from Luciano. Then the song “Suddenly,” which Soraya popularized almost three decades ago. In turn, his partner in this concert plan borrows from him “Without beginning or end” and again together, they go to bachata or quartet. The entire repertoire is an absolutely common territory and shared with the greatest fluidity. But it is curious that, having both come from folkloric scenes, they have not included native music in this project. At the end, and in order not to lose the criterion of fairness of the concert, they said goodbye with a song from each one and with a classic by León Gieco, “I only ask God” in Taquirari version.
Almost like those “residence” shows that are done in vegasthe duo still has, ahead of them, 29 performances, until December 29. To reach this first concert of that long series there were several previous signals that had been given, at least, since 2023. The most obvious was during the last show of a saga of performances that Luciano Pereyra had given at the Movistar Arena. If there was something missing to complete this series that had been carried out since the end of last year, it was to summon his friend Abel Pintos on stage again, a few days before the premiere of the song that they had recorded as a duet and which they titled with the name they Today he has this “residence” in Luna Park.
Abel Pintos at the beginning of the show he shares with Luciano PereyraCAMILA GODOY/ AFV
That happened one Saturday night. The next day, in the program The penalty of morphsthe two singers announced the formalization of the project, which initially scheduled only ten performances. That same day, during a talk with LA NACIÓN, they assured: “If we kept waiting it was not going to happen in any way. Music made us realize that, because, in the same week, I sang at his concert at the Movistar Arena and he at my concert at the stadium. In a few days, we experienced that feeling that singing together generated. We both like to work a lot, we tour, it had to be now; On the other hand, when we met at their house we realized that if we asked they would say no. I really want to sing his songs and he feels the same way with mine; They will not be each person’s versions, but our shared versions,” said Pintos.
“We never felt that Boca-River [por pertenecer a compañías discográficas distintas y a cualquier rivalidad que se pudiera generar desde el público o desde los medios]but we had the National Team shirt. Every time we sang at each other’s concerts it was a joy, we always liked to share,” said Luciano Pereyra.
Although the formality of getting to work on production is from this year, already at the end of 2023 there was a joke that lit the fuse. It all started when Abel invited Luciano for the show he planned to give in November, in Vélez. “Well, what time and what am I wearing?”the musician from Luján answered. “But since I sing at the Movistar Arena a week before, you have to come to mine.”he retorted. At the Pintos recital in Vélez, Luciano read a letter that Abel sent him when Pereyra was emerging from very delicate health problems. He still keeps it. It says: “My prayer and my faith rose in your name in the most difficult moments from a distance, but from the depths of my soul. Today I am happy to know you are well and I want to share with you this new stage in my life and my career. I admire you, I appreciate you very much. A big hug.” Thus, with that small detail, this series that has just begun began to take shape.
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