in october i had the luck and extreme pleasure to see my favorite musician, jorge drexler, in concert. i put up this post, telling myself that i would put up a more detailed concert review/reflection later. and with december halfway gone, i figure that the timing is about right to actually, you know, do that. (at length. sorry.)

the concert took place at centro de bellas artes in santurce/san juan. that night, the venue was, as i described to a friend in a text message written as i waited for the concert to start, “a mix between ‘lifestyles of the rich and crusty’ and ‘the young and the tragically, desperately hip’”. the latter were fellow drexler fans; the former, a who’s-who (or: who cares) of san juan high society folk, there for one of the other concerts being offered that night. my distaste for both crowds aside, it’s actually a nice place, with a fountain and sculptures outside and roomy reception halls within.

the doors to the rené marqués theater hall were opened at around 8:30 and people filed in, ultimately filling all of 700-someodd seats. i looked up the seating capacity this morning in order to more accurately write this entry, and i was surprised. (the opening act was unremarkable; we’re skipping him entirely.) i’m admittedly awful at estimations of this kind, but in my mind there were maybe 200-300 people, and even that seemed generous. reason being- if i had to pick one word to describe the concert overall, it would be “intimate”. i’m sure my front-row seat had something to do with this perception, but despite the number of people there, it felt like we were a much smaller group in a much smaller venue. i’ve never had such a communal experience at a concert; it was genuinely warm.

some of this had to do with the audience- this was not a concert that anybody just happened to go to, and most of the people there knew all the songs. as a result, many of the songs became something like sing-alongs, an occurrence which deeply annoyed me at first but eventually grew on me (for the most part- during ‘el pianista del gueto de varsovia’, which gives me chills as a recording and brought tears to my eyes live, i was dying for everybody to shut the hell up, and for the most part, they did). jorge seemed to appreciate it and drew on this element by asking the audience to snap along during ‘inoportuna’.

jorge himself was the other major factor in the intimate feel of the experience. he chatted and joked with (well, mostly to) us throughout the concert. at one point someone’s cell phone rang, and he addressed it quite humorously- i’m working on uploading videos, and i’m glad i captured that one. in reponse to audience requests, he played a couple of songs from eco that he hadn’t planned on playing. (he admitted to not having played one of these, ‘fusión’, in a while. he warned that he may screw up, and joked that if he did, it was the fault of the girl who had pressured him to play it. he in fact did forget the lyrics at one point, and he and everyone else laughed. this and ‘todo se transforma’ are probably my favorite songs off that album, and i was happy that they were the ones the rest of the fans wanted to hear- and that he obliged us.) he was genuinely pleased and seemed a little surprised by how much we loved him and his music. his fan base is huge in south america, but maybe he didn’t expect it to be so strong here. the last song of the night was ’se va, se va, se fue’. as he played it, he walked off the little platform and sat on the edge of the stage. there’s a line in the song that says ‘algunas veces, mejor no preguntar / por una vez que algo sale bien’ (sometimes it’s better not to ask / why, for once, something turns out well)- in the video i have, at the ’something’ part, he grins and basically gestures ‘this!’, indicating that the night was a good one for him too.

most of the songs played were from either 12 segundos de oscuridad (his newest album) or eco (probably his most popular). there were a couple songs from sea and a few covers. he sang ‘al otro lado del río’- the first spanish-language song to ever win an oscar- a cappella, which he has done ever since the organizers of the awards show decided that at the ceremony his song would be performed not by him, but by antonio banderas. because hey, what’s the difference. they’re both mexicans, right? (drexler is uruguayan; banderas, spanish.) lines of other songs seemed to come alive, to take on other, more specific meaning- in particular, the anti-war message of ‘milonga del moro judío’*. in completely excusable irony, he sang ‘guitarra y voz’- whose chorus says that out of the many things there are, those are the only two he needs- with a prerecorded percussion track and another effect that i wouldn’t even know how to begin to describe. the interplay of the traditional and the technological is a theme that he takes up frequently in his lyrics; to see the practical implementation of this live is impressive and at times haunting (see: ‘el pianista…).

bottom line.. this is a man that i was going to fly to another country to see in concert. seeing him in my own turned out to be a huge pain in the ass. but for the chance to repeat this night, i would be willing to do either. this was hands-down the best concert i’ve ever been to. i get emotional watching the videos. and granted, drexler’s music holds special significance for me, but even for someone who hadn’t been previously exposed to it or couldn’t understand the lyrics (although really- these would make it worth the effort to learn the language), it is an experience to be had.

set list/footnote after the jump:

this is probably incomplete and definitely out of order, but:

la vida es más compleja de lo que parece
12 segundos de oscuridad
inoportuna
transoceánica
disneylandia
la infidelidad en la era informática
high and dry (radiohead cover)
eco
guitarra y voz
soledad
fusión
polvo de estrellas
miel (caetano veloso cover)
?? (portuguese; didn’t catch who originally wrote it but it apparently inspired the next song)
don de fluir
dance me to the end of love (leonard cohen cover)
milonga del moro judío
el pianista del gueto de varsovia
al otro lado del río
todo se transforma
sea
se va, se va, se fue

*excerpt, which i don’t want to chop up into english.. it was subtle, but the emphasized line seemed to leave the song and just hang in the air: no hay muerto que no me duela / no hay un bando ganador / no hay nada más que dolor / y otra vida que se vuela / la guerra es muy mala escuela / no importa el disfraz que viste / perdonen, que no me aliste / bajo ninguna bandera