Let me start with something unrelated to music. Bruno Mars banned photojournalists from entering the stadium. It’s not something new. It happened at recitals held in Spain by Harry Styles, Beyoncé, Sabrina Carpenter, Rosalía… It is happening at the Mad Cool festival in Madrid these days, with Foo Fighters, Florence and the Machine, Lorde… In exchange, the artist’s team provides images to the media. The consequence is that they do not allow professional photographers to develop their work. And the victim is none other than the reader, who is deprived of quality information from the medium to which he or she subscribes. One more derivative that arises in the case of Bruno Mars: these images controlled and approved by the musician are sent “24 hours after the concert.” Meanwhile, social networks are filled with videos and photographs of the recital captured in real time by the attendees. Difficult to understand.
The concert begins with a video showing Bruno Mars praying in a church, on his knees, with his hands together in a prayer posture: “Thank you God for granting me another day doing what I love. All I ask of you is that you protect the spectators and everyone on stage. Give my band the power to give this city a show they will never forget. Amen.” He needed to add: and may Spain win tonight.
There did not seem to be any irony in this striking beginning: Mars professes great spirituality. While this was happening, the Spanish soccer team took to the field. It’s 8:55 p.m. and the 50,000 people filling the Metropolitan Stadium in Madrid are going to miss the quarterfinals of the World Cup. Many young people, the majority group, have put on Luis De la Fuente’s shirt, either red or white.
The video ends and Mars (Hawaii, USA, 40 years old) appears, dressed in a black suit with red rhinestones, along with his large band. Red scarf tied to the head. Luminous letters announce “The Romantic”, the name of their latest album, their first in ten years, and the tour. Mars adds value by opening the concert with a ballad, Risk It All. Then he gets into a santanero plan with Cha Cha Cha, where the star demonstrates skill by hitting the congas with his hands. From here awaits a two-hour recital of soul-disco with Latin touches of great seventies influence. The band, which includes, in fact, a dozen uniformed musicians, including six blowing winds and performing fun choreographies with the boss, seems ripped from a 1970s episode of the television show Soul Train.
The sound offers a surprisingly decent result, although it is true that we settled for just enough, accustomed to the negligent acoustics of the Atlético stadium.
Bruno Mars, seductive throughout the evening, proved to be a guy with a lot of vibes. He danced like we would all like to dance and he sang with that pinch of negroid soul that one has or if you don’t dedicate yourself to uploading memes to TikTok, let’s see if there is any luck. Last night he played the piano, the guitar and the aforementioned congas. An all-terrain vehicle with a touch of elegance. He proposed for the first of his Madrid concerts (he will repeat it tomorrow) a retro and danceable musical tour with the addition of torrid ballads.
By chance Fabián’s goal came when Mars was writhing while singing Perm. Wow he swallowed: he there giving everything in a ravishing ballad and the public didn’t care: goal from Spain, red and yellow flags in the wind, let’s get them, oe, oe. When Belgium tied it was the cane player’s turn Something Serious, a latin ball. The song asked the audience to give their all, but the Belgian goal cut many off.
It was a little ridiculous when some workers pushed a big red car to the center of the stage so that Mars could sing a medley composed of Oh Girl, I Want to Be Your Man y Please Me. The chosen repertoire made it clear that in some songs Mars goes overboard and the similarities with songs by Santana, Smokey Robinson, James Brown, Funkadelic or Curtis Mayfield are quite reasonable. It is something that is overcome if it is conceived as an honest tribute and not as plagiarism. Mars himself must think the same.
He dedicated just over half an hour to the songbook of the album he published under the name Silk Sonic, a group he formed with his partner Anderson .Paak, who accompanied him on stage, first playing the drums and then singing. What a good musician this man is. The couple put on a funny act. Look, we’ve seen foreign artists make nods to Spain’s culture on stage (from waving the flag to wearing a bullfighter’s hat), but never like last night: they took out a leg of ham, cut some slices right there and ate them.
After the Silk Sonic block and a party girl Marry You one of the moments of the concert arrived, the choral performance of Die With a Smile, the ballad he recorded with Lady Gaga and which has 3.8 billion views on Spotify! As if you didn’t know it by heart. Continuing with the syrupy tone, he sat down at the piano and spent ten minutes listening to romantic melodies like It Will Rain, Talking to the Moon, Grenade o When I Was Your Man. Of course, a drawing of a red heart appeared on the screens. Do you want more sugary topics? Well, there goes an instrumental piece like Kenny G. People didn’t know it, but they were looking forward to the march coming back. Are we still tied at one? Mecachis.
Mars was also aware that it was already enough of a sweet topic and quickly attacked the situation. Locked Out Of Heaven with his contagious “oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah”. Everything was collected, because there were also a couple of dance songs left: Just the Way You Are and the Mark Ronson song Uptown Funk. At the end of this, the funkiest and most intense of the night, came Spain’s second goal. Between one thing and another, we can bet that Mars has not received so much euphoria at a concert of his. Oblivious to the madness of the people, he followed the script and ended with a relaxed composition, Dance With Me. But Spain had qualified for the semifinals and what the public wanted was to scream, grab their teammate, and jump. Mikel Merino, oeoeoe, Mikel Merino…!