These are not times for jokes, but rather prone to “ignominy”, days in which “cruelty spreads everywhere, cold and robotic”, as José Agustín Goytisolo’s voiceover warned us to put us in a situation. Although Paco Ibáñez’s recitals always present a background of combat and denunciation, this Wednesday’s one at the Palau (Mil·lenni Festival) was even more armed with reasons than usual, and the troubadour wanted to dedicate it to a very precise subject, the “heroic Ukrainian people & rdquor ;, appealing to open the session to the verses of ‘I have left the word’, by Blas de Otero.
Poetry, as a last resort to shake consciences, even if they are already convinced in advance and not so much the cause of the messes. There, in front of a similar stalls in ethics and aesthetics, Paco Ibáñez reappeared with his art and his trade, the aura of the old fighter, the firm and precise voice, and the care for musical grammar. He preserves his gift to put us in a bubble full of noble desires, lyrical tension and righteous invectives, combining executive rigor with a touch of informality, between humorous comments and improvisations: Paco Ibáñez goes on stage without a prefigured repertoire, willing to decide as he goes, which keeps his collaborators on edge (and encourages the occasional misstep).
In the co-official languages
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Although his verb and his guitar are enough and more than enough, he gained in depth by adding the six strings of Mario Mas, fine son of his father, don Javier, in a repertoire that advanced through the secular literary ports (Celaya, Guillén, Storni), the vestiges of the ‘chanson’, from when Paris was “the capital of the world” (Brassens twice: ‘La mala reputation’ and ‘Pobre Martín’) and the incursions into our three co-official languages. There were the ecological ‘Que ocorre na terra?’, by Antonio García Teijeiro, the Basque memory of his childhood in ‘Heriotzaren begiak’ (the poem ‘Death will come and will have your eyes’, by Cesare Pavese, in the adaptation of Xavier Lete), and in Catalan, ‘Molt lluny’, a text by Màrius Torres, set to music by Xavier Ribalta.
Heartfelt and neat interpretations, underlined here and there by passing accomplices: the accordion of Joxan Goikoetxea, the bandoneon of César Stroscio and the parade of bowls of water, jingling keys and wind-blown woodwinds of the sonic magician Pep Pascual. And the minstrel, charging against Tyrians and Trojans, alerting us to the dangers of television and the “garbage song”, which leads us headlong into the “hole of vulgarity”, and then capable of exquisitely modulating ‘tempos’ and inflections in ‘Words for Julia’. And from there to an encore with a view to ‘Andalusians of Jaén’ and ‘A gallop’, who reminded us that no one is capable of blending anger and tenderness like him.