In an interview with Gustavo Sylvestre for Minuto Uno, Maximo Kirchner expressed his deep sorrow over the death of Carlos “Indio” Solari former singer and leader of Patricio Rey y sus Redonditos de Ricota. In the report, the leader of La Cámpora revealed the details of the close friendship he had with the artist who died on Friday, June 5, at the age of 77.
When asked by the journalist about “where the friendship with El Indio was generated,” the Peronist deputy recalled: “One day he called and invited me and a couple of colleagues to lunch and something good began to happen over time. It’s something that I have never liked to talk about because I am very reserved about my life, apart from someone who is even more so,” and he also confessed: “He hugged us, in particular, at a time that many were erased.”
In the television dialogue, the eldest son of the former president praised the musician’s family and maintained that he was “a very intelligent and nice person.” He also said that the last time they spoke was before the operation on May 8, when Kirchner underwent a scheduled surgery at the Italian Hospital in La Plata. due to bilateral parotid cystadenoma (a benign tumor in the salivary glands).
The death of the vocalist Patricio Rey and his Ricotta Rounds and The Fundamentalists of Air Conditioning It provoked one of the most massive demonstrations of popular mourning in recent years in Argentina. As determined by the forensic studies ordered by the intervening prosecutor’s office, the musician suffered a hemorrhagic stroke that caused his immediate death.
The autopsy ruled out drowning and confirmed that the blow to the head was a consequence of the fall caused by the vascular episode. The artist had been living with Parkinson’s disease for a decade, a diagnosis that he had made public in 2016 and that had kept him from performing in person.
The news broke on Friday morning and quickly became the central topic of the weekend. Thousands of followers began to gather spontaneously in different parts of the country, especially in the Buenos Aires Obelisk, Plaza de Mayo, La Plata, Córdoba, Rosario and Mar del Plata. From musicians and cultural personalities to political leaders from different ideological spaces, but especially from Peronism, they publicly expressed their condolences.
The magnitude of the impact reflected the unique place that Solari had occupied for decades within Argentine popular culture. The singer, together with his bands, managed to build a massive audience without depending on the major media or the traditional structures of the music industry. “For a lifetime Indio,” Máximo Kirchner messaged on his X account along with a photo of the artist and his mother, Cristina Kirchner.
The public farewell began on Sunday. Several hours before the official opening, long lines of fans could be seen stretching for numerous blocks around the venue. Entire families, groups of friends arriving from different provinces and historical followers of the so-called “ricotera mass” waited for hours to enter.
A crowd of almost a million people carried Los Redondos flags, t-shirts with images of the musician, football club banners and banners with phrases taken from his songs. Throughout the day, collective songs, improvised acoustic versions and fragments of classics from the Ricotero repertoire performed by the attendees themselves were heard. The influx of public exceeded the initial forecasts and forced the extension of the scheduled entry times. The lines continued for practically the entire day and moved slowly due to the controls and the large number of people who wanted to remain in front of the coffin for a few minutes.
Unlike other mass events historically associated with the ricotero universe, the farewell took place mostly in a climate of respect and meditation, with no serious incidents recorded that would alter the development of the funeral. Indio Solari’s farewell ended as an event of historic dimensions. The crowd that filled Villa Domínico came to pay tribute to one of the most influential, convening and representative figures of Argentine popular culture in recent decades.
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