All over the world, Music Day is celebrated on November 22, the day of the death of Saint Cecilia, patron saint of musicians, but not in Argentina. The day chosen, at the proposal of the National Institute of Music and transformed into law by Congress, is January 23, the day Luis Alberto Spinetta was born in 1950. That is why León Gieco, a close friend and creative travel companion, took advantage of that date to remember him in the most personal way: with a song in the same place that the “Flaco” family chose to throw his ashes into the Río de la Plata.
Gieco was careful to approach the property the day before. He knew of the degradation he suffered because over the years he visited him several times in search of memories and company. But this time he found it a mess and even questioned the decision to record the tribute video there, as he had agreed with Diego Boris, president of the Institute.
But a formidable idea emerged that gave new strength to the project. Thus the video begins with León Gieco himself, broom in hand, announcing that before singing he is going to put the place in good condition, sweeping, removing the garbage that surrounds the place where the City Government once placed a plaque of tribute that It was already stolen and never replaced.
When the musician and his microphones and instruments could finally be installed, it was time to sing and the song chosen was nothing less than “The Absences” in a moving version, as stripped down as the video that moves in its simplicity and stark humanity. More than a solemn commemoration, it is perceived the same as “a guy who goes and sings to his friend”, just as he could leave a flower or a letter. “A solitary and deeply human move,” Diego Boris defined it.
In the same video, Gieco launches another idea directed at the City Government. Why not put back a memorial monolith, close the place, transform it into a true Luis Spinetta space so that every year people can gather there to share his songs?
Gieco in an old presentation with Spinetta.
