Friday, March 29, 2024
HomeEntertainmentManá and Puerto Rico profess mutual affection

Maná and Puerto Rico profess mutual affection

“How could / The flower grow without soil / How I would like / To be able to live without you / But I can’t / I feel like I’m dying / I’m drowning without your love” – Fher Olvera

The Puerto Rican public received the Latin pop-rock group with the usual affection Manna. Five years had passed, hurricanes, earthquakes, economic bankruptcy and the pandemic -among other misfortunes on this Island-, since his last visit.

The current members are Fher Olvera, composer, leader and vocalist; Juan Calleros on electric bass; Álex González on drums and voice; and Sergio Vallín on electric (metal strings) and classical (nylon strings) guitars. The multi-award-winning group founded in Guadalajara, Mexico in 1986 has received 25 Billboard awards, 15 Lo Nuestro Awards, 4 Grammys and 8 Latin Grammys, as well as a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and the extraordinary recognition “Person of the Year” in 2018 from the Latin Recording Academy.

Maná, after having sold over 40 million records on five continents and innumerable successful concert tours, managed to fill our largest venue for shows, the Jose Miguel Agrelot Coliseum of Puerto Ricoof his good vibes and beautiful (and super catchy) songs.

It was a reunion with many of the great hits of one of the bands that popularized rock in Spanish in the 1980s-90s, such as: “Rayando el sol”, “Me vale”, “Vivir sin aire”, “De pies a head” and “Hey my love”, from the successful production entitled “Where will the children play?”, which sold more than 10 million copies, becoming a Spanish rock album for history.

The public was delirious from the introduction on the harmonica of the well-known song “Vivir sin aire”. The social conscience of this wonderful group of artists has manifested itself since the creation in 1995 of its Selva Negra Ecological Foundation, in favor of the environment. The lights and scenery of the Maná work team were very effective in communicating the essence of the transparent aesthetic proposal.

The program of the memorable concert consisted of a mixture of Latin pop, ballads, with the different aspects of rock (soft, progressive, hard) and ska. They were kind enough to include fundamental numbers of their work in the sequence of this tour, such as the hits “En el Muelle de San Blas” and “Como dueles en loslipos”, with the same singular energy of the album “Sueños Líquidos” -produced by Alex , Fher and Benny Faccone in front of the sea-, where they played creativity from genres such as bossa-nova, cha-cha-chá, guajira, flamenco styles and Jamaican reggae.

An extensive drum solo established the mastery of Álex González, a veteran musician born in Miami, of Colombian and Cuban extraction, who at the age of 15 was one of the founders in 1986 of Maná, a word that means positive energy in the language Polynesian. This moment of brilliance for the expressive artist also served as an interlude in the show for a change of stage, a movement that served as a visual stimulus for those of us who had to sit far away.

A pity that the sound was not reproduced with the same quality as that emitted from the main stage. In this segment they reinterpreted some folk songs from the immense popular legacy of their country of origin.

What I can’t understand and what leaves me perplexed is why the concerts at the Choliseo almost always start late, on this occasion, an hour and 45 minutes after the announced time.

It is not fair to those who pay and arrive early, nor to those of us who work at these events. The Santurce Fine Arts Center eliminated this problem decades ago, imposing fines on producers after 11 minutes of lateness. There is always room to reflect and improve our battered social coexistence.

Recent posts