Javier Herrero.
Madrid, Jul 20 (EFE).- Karol G, the “Bichota” with a blinding smile and catchy, empowering songs, has this Saturday made a Madrid in the midst of a heat wave (more) on fire and “more beautiful” to achieve the unprecedented feat of four full houses at the Santiago Bernabéu stadium.
“This week has been a week of great gratitude for me; you can see for yourselves what is happening here and it’s been four nights like this. I am a girl from home, who one day dreamed something and it was granted; don’t stop dreaming because it is possible!” the Colombian proclaimed through tears at the end of a two-and-a-half-hour concert, wrapped in the Spanish flag.
Except for the attempt to bring her to a Latin festival in the suburbs in 2023 (announced and then cancelled, perhaps because this opportunity at the Bernabéu came up just then), there is no better way to illustrate her enormous growth than her previous performance in Madrid five years ago: in a room for less than a thousand people, where she performed without lights and on the bar.
Five years later, he will perform in front of a total of 240,000 people who sold out each of the dates he proposed in the renovated home of Real Madrid in hours thanks to a repertoire he has forged in this time, especially after emerging with one of the great songs of the pandemic, ‘Tusa’.
After that came two successful albums, including ‘Mañana Será Bonito’ (2023), which she sang almost entirely on this tour, both the original and the reissue ‘Bichota Season’, and which made her not only one of the most awarded artists at the last Latin Grammys, but also the first woman in many years with the best urban music album.
As we have seen, she leads a largely female mass that sees her as a reference, 70% of the public that has bought tickets according to Ticketmaster, as well as a large LGTBIQ+ community, with which she has made a public commitment, such as when she organized her own float at Pride 2022.
In the same way, she has put into practice her commitment to female empowerment on this tour, in which she is accompanied not only by five musicians on instruments, with a small brass section, but also by fifteen dancers with whom she composes very powerful slogans for “the hotties.”
He began his story for the people of Madrid about a siren that ends up with a “frozen heart”, something that is difficult to transfer to Madrid at the end of July, in the middle of a heat wave inside and outside this stadium with the dome closed to reduce the complaints of the neighbours, which turns it into an oven, not only because of the fervour of the attendees.
This has been multiplied with the appearance of the protagonist on stage in a very tight nude-coloured jumpsuit with rhinestones, her characteristic pink hair and all the attitude of a star, to perform one of her greatest hits as an opener, ‘TQG’.
“Are you aware of the number of people here tonight and how many people I can hear screaming?” he asked the 60,000 attendees, reminding them that they were going to hear many of the songs from this repertoire for the first time, including the aforementioned ‘Tusa’, one of the most eagerly awaited moments of a show that had just started.
By then, recent songs like ‘x si volvemos’ and earlier ones like ‘Mi cama’ had already been played, fulfilling their promise that this was going to be “the coolest night of our lives”, between giant sharks and frozen mermaids, although the stage design was not the most remarkable thing, but rather the energy, the community, the songs and the choreographic force around them.
“It’s so hot!” the artist herself from the scorching Medellín acknowledged in a show that was made even hotter by jets of fire and ‘Bichota’ or ‘El Makinón’, all on the flower-shaped platform in the centre of the dance floor, where her “favourite song” from her latest album, ‘Carolina’, which bears her real name, was also performed.
They say that one of her greatest assets is her empathy, manifested here in a permanent warm smile and constant confidences and words of affection for an audience to whom she has dedicated the tender ‘Ocean’, raised on a piano-cloud, like a dream at once angelic and yet close.
During this stretch at the halfway point, he has been able to show off his voice, with other cuts such as ‘Pero tú’ (without Quevedo), ‘Mercurio’ or ‘A ella’, the oldest of this night, from his first album, ‘Unstoppable’ (2017).
With the moral that “there is a Bichota inside each one of you” she began the long final stretch between a garden of inflatable flowers and with the optimistic “While I cure myself of the heart” that she danced holding hands with her “hippy” commune, in the most naive moment of the show (and there have been several).
With ‘Contigo’, her acoustic interpretation in Spanish of Leona Lewis’ ‘Bleeding Love’, she has shown that her nose for creating new hits in 2024 remains intact, just as with her latest single, ‘Si Antes Te Hubiera Conocido’. “Hey, this song is number 1 in Spain!” she stressed to a devoted Bernabéu.
There was still time for an explosive and electronic ‘Cairo’, the Mexican flavour of ‘Mi ex estaba razón’ and ‘Gucci y los telas’, with accordion and tuba included, and to offer a shot to the congregation as a preview of ‘200 copas’.
Then the end came with that ‘Mamiii’ with which he hit the nail on the head again together with the other Latin star with whom he shares lyrics, Becky G, as well as with ‘S91’, which was not played in previous concerts, or the unavoidable ‘Provenza’ and ‘Mañana Será Bonito’. EFE
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2024-07-22 23:31:00