They were barely over twenty while he was over fifty. There were three of them and they danced and sang, jumping and laughing. He, almost motionless, with a face of happiness written with a shy smile, neither moved nor sang. His gray hair denoted his aesthetic lineage. These four people were joined by a 62-year-old artist. Also to the children present there with their parents, and people who belonged to at least four generations, each of them not only represented by irrelevant figures. Altogether 23,800 people, in addition, everything and the predominance of the neighborhood and of people with streets, there were also middle and well-to-do class. It is true that to be great you must not only have an audience but a sum of audiences and Robe Iniesta is one of these, he is one of those who does not speak only for those of his generation. This urban poet is for many people a kind of saint who must be trusted because he does not use half measures to talk about times that deserve improvement or that, as he said, force us to fight to change them although, he explicitly stressed “if it is achieved or I don’t give a damn.” You make your way by walking, said another. That’s what counts for Robe too.
With a Forum configuration adapted for a single scenario, the show It could be heard and seen in good condition almost anywhere in the venue. Comfort was necessary, three hours of show separated by more than 20 minutes of rest demanded it. Not crazy bar prices favored an enjoyment that keeps Robe at the crest of national urban rock with its bet between tenderness, rawness, thick words and the sensitive line of its most restful songs. These were the protagonists of the first long hour of the concert, opened as is usually the norm with Destrozares, a slow, painful song where the violin and the sounds of clarinet and sax were already shown that outline the forests of guitars typical of the rock that Robe embodies. A worn-out sweatshirt, a solidarity t-shirt for the foundation she supports, Colibrí, and her everlasting printed skirts as an image always topped by her hair streaked with gray hair. Dry as a wire. The same as always, as always, making each concert not a carbon copy of the previous one for the sake of not getting bored in the repetition of a tour that he has been starring in for months with constant successes and that will end in Madrid at the beginning of November.
In the third song he already introduced the first change in his repertoire in relation to the most recent ones through Warrior. It was only the third piece of the 23 that he performed, but he already had the audience seduced by that secarral voice, and he sang and sang with it as if celebrating reconciliation with the joy of living. The arms of the crowd were already thousands of windshield wipers going from side to side in cruel lullabydedicated to all children in conflict zones, especially those in Gaza. Before, he had greeted in Catalan, a language that he recognized had not seemed necessary to him, why don’t they speak normally like me? He said he had asked himself before, until Albert Pla crossed his life. He made of him The drought another example of love poetry based on images that do not evoke love and that are part of a language considered vulgar. Because Robe, like Pla, talks about life, about feelings, desires and frustrations, about addictions, depressions and overcomings with harsh images that scratch, stones on a path of words. Direct language like a slap. There are no nooks and crannies. The first block, in which three songs from Extremoduro, his previous band, were already played, closed with The power of art and its celebration of songs that leave the “smell of napalm” in the air.
After a break in which he didn’t even change his clothes, or if he did it was to put on the same ones, the concert quickened the pace. The power of rock urban in all its expression, instrumental developments executed with precision by an impeccable band that thus immersed themselves in progressive rock, southern accents, long songs of up to eight minutes, accelerated guitar solos, stony drive of the rhythm section and Robe there, at the same time. front, sandy voice guiding the jovial crowd. In this second section, four songs from Extremoduro paraded – they usually vary in each concert -, although Love, love, love and expand lifethe closing one, remains firm as a farewell. Before a Nothing to lose trotón turned the crowd upside down, in those moments when the audience looks at themselves and sees themselves enjoying themselves, feeling happy closing the circle with the stage, from which they did not disengage throughout the night. And from time to time there were breaks between songs that made a continuous rhythm difficult. But with a repertoire of the depth and popularity of Robe’s there was no insurmountable stoppage. The crowd had already chanted This is not happening, with another street lyric in which everyone broke out singing “now that it’s sunny, I plan to take advantage of it to sun my balls”, another example of street poetry, that street in the that Robe Iniesta has survived to become one of the country’s strongest rockers, an infallible weaver of complicities that involve not only those who might seem to be his natural audience.
