PACO DE LUCÍA. ‘COSITAS BUENAS’.
SEVILLE'S 13th BIENAL DE FLAMENCO 2004

Paco de Lucía and humans

Silvia Calado. Seville, September 14th, 2004
Photos: Daniel Muñoz

‘Cositas buenas’ (‘Good Little Things’). Paco de Lucía: guitar. Duquende, Montse Cortés, La Tana: cante. Niño Josele: second guitar, percussion, clapping. Piraña: box drum. Alain Pérez: bass. Antonio Serrano: harmonica, keyboard. La Cartuja Auditorium. Seville, September 14th, 2004. 10 p.m. Seville's 13th Bienal de Flamenco 2004.

Six years had passed since Paco de Lucía last performed in Seville. And Seville was awaiting him. Six thousand people from all walks of life filled, despite the high ticket prices, the entire capacity of La Cartuja Auditorium, an open-air venue which is an architectural inheritance from Expo’92. Beginning one hour before the start of the concert, the ‘island’ was a swarm of fans - among them, a great many flamenco artists, above all, guitarists - who gradually filled the place to the brim. When Paco de Lucía appeared on stage, the auditorium shook, went mad. As soon as the maestro took his seat and brandished his guitar, a deathly silence overcame the place. A supernatural phenomenon.

Paco de Lucía

With the palm grove which always frames it as the unique scenography, it must be due to having the inspiring land of Yucatan nearby, he got down to the task by recovering the rondeña ‘Mi niño Curro’ (‘Siroco’, 1987) from his vast discography. It was clear from the first note that this musician belongs to another galaxy, another dimension. As Tomatito says, “there's Paco and afterwards there's all the rest of us”. The music gushes forth from one knows not what magical place, like a work of witchcraft. The minimum, the maximum. Delicacy, brute strength. All the variety of nuances that music is capable of is intrinsic in those hands... in that mind. The crowd starts to react following the initial shock and some now shout ‘olés’, ‘pacos’ and ‘maestros’. Amazing.

As if to make contact with the world, he has himself accompanied by humans who sing and mark the beat. ‘Antonia’, bulería through soleá, is the first song from ‘Cositas buenas’. The rhythm that guitar has is not from here. Duquende, Montse Cortés and La Tana do choruses. Piraña and Niño Josele (yeah, the guitarist) keep up the rhythm, multiplying the same pattern. And the maestro knows how to fall back, to listen to them. The bulería goes on gushing forth from his deconstructed, fragmented guitar, as if seen from its entrails. And frenzy swells in the stands. He harangues them with another song through bulerías, with another planet. Completely stratospheric. He smiles, enjoys himself. And his hands get lost in the close-up on the giant screens. What immensity in that reinventing himself at every moment. What a way to naturalize the pirouettes which in others would be mere fireworks. How he changes registers to plunge us into the depths of the soleá from ‘Luzía’. He takes us where he wants to... and we let ourselves go. This is a journey to an impossible place, with scales in a musical story of its own and of all. Someone shouts “Paco!”. Paco answers “What?”. And we take part in the joke, in the flash of humanity. The thing is that he is a mellow being. The first part of the concert reaches its end with the guitar boiling, and how it pierces us with a shot of adrenaline. Ecstasy.

The break serves to absorb the experience to the extent that is possible. The second part has another tone. The instrumentalists who Paco de Lucía now surrounds himself with do not make up a band, and therefore the music is not an experience; there is no interaction. Everyone coincides in remembering the sextet, the one in which each of them was a stratospheric being in his instrument. Of course this way, Paco de Lucía is even further from planet Earth and dazzles everything. Even the production, surprisingly scanty in its audiovisual means, lighting and the scenography itself considering the star that he is, having the payroll that he has.

The maestro goes on looking inside, again looking at himself in time. Sólo quiero caminar’ comes to the guitar with the rumba airs of ‘Palenque’. Fire at discretion. The festive choruses, the harmonica which replies to the lead melody, the bass which persists in itself, the eighties' keyboard which disfigures. And Duquende, who pays tribute to that Camarón de la Isla who has possessed him. “Suenan campanas del alba”. ‘El Perol’ is heard. And the guitar rides on its riding, seconded by latin airs. A change of style. From below, emerging step by step comes what will be the bulería ‘Volar’. And he feeds it in doses until making it grow. All the voices have their place. The harmonica remembers ‘La Tumbona’. More wood on the fire, more sensations, more... Fever. ‘Cositas buenas’ (2004) comes nearly by itself. That introduction is awesome. The concert continues along the same lines it was going. Perhaps now the cante has a larger role, always festive. Paco de Lucía makes self-references, joining all his moments, all his stages... which are, at the same time, references, moments and stages of recent flamenco.

“Thank you. Although it's very scary, it's a great pleasure to play in Seville, blessed land!” The words fall upon the auditorium like an authentic blessing. And ‘Ziryab’ (1990) is the making of the sign of the cross which reaffirms everyone in this faith. This music surpasses music; it leaves it behind, goes beyond it. It is heavenly when the guitar is in command; it is the world of humans' turn when they dare to play it. And for Paco de Lucía it is like a game. The crowd whistles, stamps its feet, claps, shouts. The divine one plays hard to get... but returns. And he does so, of course, with ‘Entre dos aguas’... but updated, revisited with utmost wisdom. Thirty years of musical universalism contained in one single piece. Thirty years of genius rewarded with the fervor of humans.

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