The Catalan singer-songwriter ends her national tour after two sold-out ones at the WiZink Center in Madrid and temporarily retires
When the whole world threw the knife and the restlessness between uncertainty and the screen settled, a voice from John Fante’s novel whispered on the other side: Hi, I just wanna say hello. Fear was stuck in the throat of a country and his song invited to name it and dance to the rhythm of a hymn in the making: In Spain we call it loneliness. Rigoberta Bandini he anticipated it from the beginning: «I like music to make you cry and dance at the same time». And that motto has always been his signature.
That summer of juggling on the wire of freedom, Paula Ribó (Barcelona, 1990) gave birth to a son and an alter ego: Rigoberta Bandini sewed the wings to her last dream and sang to Paula that “we are not leaving this party.” Surely, the first one answered him that she was born “to be a bitch”, without leashes or muzzles, but neither of them imagined that thousands of followers would bark this collective catharsis in chorus at the gates of the Palau Sant Jordi in Barcelona.
And perhaps they also did not guess that the indie diva who sang to earthliness and spirituality, knotting the lysergic trips of MDMA with the insight through the highways of the self, would leave months later as one of the favorite candidates for Eurovision.
In Spain we say “what the hell do I do”, Rigoberta would confess that Paula told her. But no one can forbid me to barkPaula would admit that Rigoberta told her.
And blurring and looking at each other, nudity arrived, with that visceral cry from inside out in the echo of ma-ma-ma that, as a continuation of Female dog, placed a giant boob on the Turin stage at the final gala of the Benidorm Fest, claiming the strength and beauty of the female body in true Delacroix style.
many pointed star
And a many-pointed star was born under its own name, with ultraviolet and electric rays that make up a constellation of infused songs, not very wide, but luminous and full of influences, which pierce the heart, emulating its rhythm. The artist herself registers her style under the resource of “black hype”which refers to the four kicks per measure that equals 130 BPM (beat per minute) and that are in time with the heartbeat.
This is how Bandini confessed in his first RigoTalk on his YouTube channel, which he shared with the also singer C. Tangana, contemporary of the one in Barcelona and partly responsible for the viralization of In Spain we call it loneliness those days of confinement
But this dance of palpitations also evokes the beating of the heart from the maternal womb -you who tied your body well to my head-, which gives that atavistic substrate to the Bandini universe, like a song from the core that always refers, between steely irony and electronic party, to the celebration of the body, freedom and love.
His way of braiding melancholy and perreo, with a postmodern aesthetic that intersects the atmospheres of Franco Battiato, the whiplash of Gigi D’Agostino, the sounds of Abba, the classicism of Mocedades and the homage to Mónica Naranjo, opens the latitudes of your planet at all ages and all women on the sill of your questions.
Last October, the artist regrouped the songs from her firmament in her first record release, which she called La Emperatriz, perhaps because she brings together all the mirrors of her inner empire. To great songs like Julio Iglesias, May Christ come down, That’s how he danced either See what happens added Love songs to you, you and me, that living is a garden and its namesake emblemlike a fairy tale between celestial songs with which she says goodbye as “La Rigo, your trusted priestess.”
But his reign abroad was highlighted in the string of concerts that toured the Spanish geography in this last quarter of 2022, which included a stop in the Canary Islands as part of the Arena Negra Festival, in Fuerteventura, in November, and which revolutionized with two The WiZink Center in Madrid and another in the Palau Sant Jordi in Barcelona are full.
His closeness and naturalness on stage, his progressive stage dominance flanked by his brand new dance troupe and chorus girls -among them, his cousin and faithful squire Belén Barenys, AKA Memé-, and the comedian and musician Esteban Navarro, AKA Rigoberto and sentimental partner of the artist, in production and on the keys, round off a visual spectacle around songs that were already flying alone.
“A little to the pussy”
After taking the sky by storm, Rigoberta loses sight of Paula in the clouds. The weight of the crown is also nostalgia for picnics on the beach and the almond-shaped Magnum that she sings in Party. Because the mirrors are also exhausted when there is a lack of distance with respect to the image. The public elevated Rigoberta to Empress, but Paula had to turn off the music “for a long time”, as she revealed last summer in The resistance“because I’m a little fed up with some things.” He did not promise a return ticket, but he did endorse the immortality of his songs, a musical reference from feminist demonstrations to discos and his own rooms.
Last Friday he gave the last concert of The Empress and of this primitive and meteoric stage of Rigoberta Bandini in the Príncipe Felipe de Zaragoza Pavilion. Before removing the crown, she said goodbye with a song from the beginning of him, Too many drugs, where, once again, Rigoberta and Paula seem to merge into a single line: “I’m leaving,” she sings through tears. «Everything is fine, because it was always fine. And it will be fine.”