Alcalá Norte confirms its large step with a euphoric live performance in Madrid | Culture | EUROtoday

A man who appears to have been taken from a Saxon live performance held in 1984 in that temple of heavy metallic referred to as Chancellor comes out on stage. He wears elastic pants with black and white vertical stripes, a darkish T-shirt, and a denim jacket with the sleeves lower off. Long, curly hair. He is carrying a wineskin in his hand. Give a brief speech into the microphone. Nothing is known as a result of the general public cheers carefully. Only the final phrases will be heard effectively: “We are Alcalá Norte and we come to share. Come!” He takes a drink from the boot and throws it to the viewers. His identify is Jaime Barbosa and he performs the drums. In this very peculiar means, the live performance by the Madrid-based Alcalá Norte started, a band made up of twenty- and thirty-somethings that confirmed on Saturday evening at La Riviera (in addition they carry out as we speak and tomorrow, Monday) that these huge band designs that they identified a yr and a half in the past at the moment are a actuality.

Full home in Madrid (2,200 individuals) and the sensation of attending an essential recital, since maybe hardly ever can the group be seen in a venue of medium measurement, particularly within the capital, their metropolis. In reality, the band has simply introduced a date on the Movistar Arena in Madrid, February 20, 2027, the place they are going to current their second album, which is being developed within the studio for the time being.

Much of the success of the quintet, strengthened yesterday Saturday by a sixth member on guitar, is known by the extensive age vary of the attendees: a legion of girls and boys of their 20s combined with forties and fifties whom this group has managed to get out of the home on a Saturday as a result of it reminds them of these bands from the eighties with which they turned captivated with music: Derribos Arias, The Cure, Aviador Dro, Joy Division…

There are issues within the Alcalá Norte universe which can be vividly appreciated in live shows like final evening’s. For instance, the antagonistic determine they draw and the way effectively this disparity fits them: a heavy drummer, a classically educated keyboardist, a bassist who’s much more on his recreation than the usual bassist, a guitarist with very lengthy white hair that strikes tirelessly and a singer who pours into his lyrics his obsessions with gods, faith or the theories of thinkers like Calvin or Goethe. The latter, Álvaro Rivas, on a journey to find one of the simplest ways to precise himself together with his voice, demonstrated some innate achievements, reminiscent of not needing to maneuver an excessive amount of to convey charisma. Like Liam Gallagher, however with out despising the world, Rivas can undertake a music in a static place and looking out on the viewers with out blinking and with out detracting from the character of the efficiency.

The group reviewed their first and solely full-length album and rescued a number of the songs from what they name “early demo.” The mixture of keyboards with guitars and the sonic drawings generated by the bass are harking back to sounds from the early eighties with an essential nuance: what as soon as generated a darkish environment, they flip right into a festive one. Because they’ve managed to make a music that claims “the blood of the rich is pus” grow to be a chunk of pop hit chanted all through the room. Contributing to this environment of revelry are the decorations which can be launched into the present, reminiscent of when a Power Ranger seems on stage whereas the elegant 420N; or when the winner of a scratch card is revealed from some playing cards which were distributed on the entrance; or after they distribute cigarillos to the general public; or when Barbosa presents the songs, with a Cheli tone of voice that solely hardened guys like fairgrounds have, “for the lady, the gentleman and the boy, the chochona doll.”

After 75 minutes, the live performance inevitably ended with The canyon life, an anthem of latest musical Spain that skilled within the first rows of final evening’s recital meant getting into right into a roar of pushing, shared sweat and the occasional “sorry” after a stomp. Everything would not matter as a result of in these moments, life, in reality, consists solely of having fun with that second. And tomorrow we are going to see…