We think Rosalía is aiming for world domination. She brought everything to the Vorst Nationaal – well, a few musicians, but all Latin pop genres, amazing song and dance, clear ambition. And she also has a lot of charm.
Rosalía stands alone on stage, with a ten-metre long black lace train hooked to her leather dress, shouting ‘De plata’. The flamenco is played so wildly, on such a bare acoustic guitar, that it sounds like metal. The result is excellent. It’s also a small reference to all the critics in the room that the Spanish singer can sing quite a bit.
It was one of the best moments of his performance on Vorst Nationaal Monday, if not the most typical. Those were the songs in which Rosalía her booty rocked to pumping reggaeton, or question and answer sung with the girls in the hall – the performance was also an early New Year’s celebration for all Spanish speakers in the country. Flamenco is only one part of it. On MotomamiOur record of the year, serves a nice mix of reggaeton, punk, ballads and flamenco. On stage it translated into an equally ambitious mix of contemporary western dance, a dash of manga and costumes that are both sportswear and superhero attire.
Trick
At Rock Werchter 2019, there were still gaps between his songs, as if we were watching separate videos. In 2022, a Rosalía performance is a relentless tsunami with only a few gimmicks: Rosalía puts makeup on stage during “Diablo”, medleys and too-short versions of good songs, like “Chicken teriyaki”. The show already beckons to the festival and look: Rosalía is at Rock Werchter 2023.
Photo: Koen Bauters
He did it without musicians, with the exception of Llorenç Barcelo on piano in “Sakura”, the penultimate track. The rest was on tape, even the handclaps in the medley of flamenco songs “De aqui no sales” and “Bulerías”. Is it cheating? Maybe that’s better than playing Aldi versions of those nifty synths and samples on classical instruments, a problem that kills a lot of pop acts these days. Just a good drummer sometimes, or such an exuberant set of Brazilian percussionists would have been nice.
Untie the men
But Rosalía hums and sings as easily as she lashes out, so there were plenty of vocal highlights. The overwhelming “Linda”. The poignant and intriguing electro-flamenco of ‘Malamente’. ‘Hentai’, the funniest and most sensual song of Motomami, which led to the piano – only a puddle remained of the men in front of me. And the pure emotion of ‘G3 N15’ – read: Genis, his eleven-year-old grandson. To a room full of fans from Costa Rica or Chile, she shared how much she missed her family when she was stranded in the US during the pandemic. Here and there someone shed a tear.
This was truly a concert, staged directly from the theatre. First because Rosalía brought eight to ten dancers with her, who mixed experimental dance with flamenco in “Bulerías”; the wildest image of the night was the human motorcycle they fashioned so the singer could ride on their backs.
Selfies
They used almost only the central part of the huge stage, literally in an intimate circle. A cameraman walked between the dancers, behind or right in front of the singer – and sometimes obstructed the audience. She earned her the scornful comment in Spain that she was doing a ‘selfie concert’, but not surprisingly the screens next to the stage resembled large cell phones: this was a concert for fans who grew up with social media. When Rosalía jumped into the audience, the cameraman jumped ahead. Did the camera tilt? Then she just tilted.
During ‘Malamente’ it was understood how much this cheerful amateurism was even just a trick to make the concert seem more intimate and restricted. Suddenly the camera is hanging from the ceiling for beautiful images of the dancers circling Rosalía.
So many ingredients, so much ambition, but Rosalía has succeeded. It was also, to put it in ‘Hentai’, ‘so, so well’.
Rosalía, seen at Vorst Nationaal, Monday 12 December
