A packed Salinero welcomed with open arms last Thursday, October 24, the award-winning artist Rodrigo Cuevas, who surprised the audience with his knowledge of Canarian whistling, his unmistakable style as a total artist and an artistic force that raised the public from their seats as had not been seen for some time at the Víctor Fernández Gopar Theater.
"How beautiful," the public translated Cuevas' whistle, "fresh from a course in" Gomero "whistling, whose teacher, according to the singer, considers him an outstanding student.
Jokester, cheeky, but friendly; glam and folklore, all in one; Cuevas thanked the public for the absolute full house and welcomed them to "the Pilgrimage of your lives."
Cuevas teased the Lanzarote public with the rivalry between the islands and became so archipelagic that he even dared to sing a Canarian folía, which made the entire theater dance without restraint.
"If I were to be born again in another life in Lanzarote," he said, "I would be delighted, I would make a hole in La Geria, produce wine, go and drink it at the Mirador del Río and then go down the Camino de las Gracioseras to be naked on the beach."
In strict black in his first outfit, but with fringes, transparencies, a fan, bell-bottom pants, a colored sash and a lot of style, Cuevas strolled singing through the theater, especially in Asturian, but also in Spanish and Galician, with some beautiful high mountain Asturian clogs, and danced wildly with the public to his songs.
Also through the corridors of the Salinero, interacting with the audience in a sensual way and in the purest Freddy Mercury style, but with a rural flavor, Cuevas dared to take a walk with a striptease, joked about emulating Jesulín de Ubrique from the 90s, and managed, moving to the rhythm of "You can leave your hat on", to have all kinds of clothes thrown at him, including a couple of bras.
With the high of a devoted audience, Cuevas made a whole song to freedom with his songs, full of humor, social criticism, irony, and intelligent denunciation: "Freedom is like the yogurt maker, he said, those who have it don't use it until one day a long-handed friend comes and brushes it off."
The Asturian artist, this time with another colorful outfit, offered several encores to the public, with whom he also had time to toast with his musicians with honey rum, although he sympathetically lamented that no one from the public "had brought flasks to the concert."
The show La Romería landed in Arrecife thanks to the Culture Department of the Cabildo de Lanzarote.
Awards and La Romería
Cuevas has distinguished himself in recent years as one of the most important musicians on the national scene, with a resounding success that has led him to receive, in addition, the 2022 Arcoíris Award from the Ministry of Equality, the RNE Critical Eye Award of 2021 for Modern Music, the 2020 MIN Award for Revelation Artist and "Best Fusion and World Music Album", among other achievements.
Cuevas is an integral artist who draws from folklore and traditions to offer a global and contemporary proposal like few others in the world. La Romería is nourished by the songs that make up the album Manual de Romería, although some of the themes from his previous work, such as Arboleda bien plantada or Rambalín, also run through it.
