It all started when the Estreo Picnic festival in Colombia invited them to present El Dorado in full when it was about to turn 25 years old. But the pandemic caused everything to be canceled and they did not present it until the 28th anniversary, in 2023 and at the Palacio de los Deportes in Bogot. Now they are releasing the album El Dorado (live) 29 years after its original release. It’s not exactly 30, but they will probably continue celebrating until next year.
We are very determined to show what is new, we are always busy, touring, playing and recording new albums, but we know that El Dorado is the album that broke it in Latin America, admits Hctor Buitrago, bassist and founder of the band together with Andrea Echeverri. . The people asked for it.
Songs like Florecita rockera, Bolero fallaz and La estaca made the album one of the most popular Spanish rock albums of the 1990s.
At the concert there were people of all ages, there were many super teenagers, there were children, which is also nice, because Atercios does this generational bridge thing, said vocalist Echeverri. There were people our age, in their thirties and forties, who say they heard the album at school. It’s nice, it’s like a place of sensitivity that is very difficult to access.
They plan to post more videos of the Live concert on their YouTube channel. For now you can see La estaca, Mujer Gala with Rubn Albarrn and Bolero fallacious, with Carlos Vives. The latter, his most recent release, premiered on Thursday night.
I really like bolero, I sing because my mother sings, neither Hector nor I are musicians, but I grew up in this family where they always got together and my mother took out the acoustic guitar and started singing boleros and rancheras, said Echeverri.
Hctor had that chorus and we sang it at rehearsal and the old man who took care of the (rehearsal) place, when we left, we heard him stay whistling that chorus. Then we said that choir has it, he added. We sat down to see what verse we would put on and I said, I know the progression of the bolero and that’s how it came about.
His history with Vives is long. The same year they released El Dorado, Vives published La tierra del olvido, another album that marked Latin American music and they were also neighbors of businesses. Los Aterciopelados had a bar in the La Candelaria area of Bogotá, on Calle 10, and Vives had his two blocks away. Vives had previously performed Colombia Conexin in a tribute album to El Dorado.
Among their guest choices, they also invited Albarrn, vocalist of the Mexican band Café Tacvba, due to his proximity to their musical universe.
When we recorded El Dorado, Re (from Café Tacvba) had recently come out and we were listening to a lot of Re, because we felt like many coincidences like this folk reinterpretation, but in a very personal and contemporary way, said Echeverri. Rubn was perfect.
In the concert you can hear them accompanied by several musicians with drums, keyboards, percussion, choirs, accordion, wind instruments and Majo Gutirrez on guitar. For the mastering and sound engineering part, they collaborated with Jorge Corredor, his usual sound engineer, Oscar Muoz, monitor engineer, and José Blanco for the mastering.
They are aware that they have changed since their album came out, but at the same time they are proud to preserve what is most important.
I believe that in essence we remain the same and that is the best thing, that the essence is never lost, said Buitrago. We continue to be like those irreverent and creative people, no longer young and wild, but with the same strength and energy.
Something that also remains is the powerful image of a woman in Latin American rock and alternative music like Echeverri, who since she became known singing at the top of her lungs has not ceased to surprise her followers.
Yes, that was one of the things that opened the doors so strongly with Aterciopelados, a girl with short hair, the guitars, the flowers, that symbolism and that color that songs like Bolero fallacious or Florecita rockera had at the beginning, said Buitrago. . And there were some songs that, although they were not written with a feminist theme, became anthems because Andrea sang them, like Florecita rockera, and that phrase alone was very inspiring for girls at that time and still.
Aterciopelados will perform this weekend in Panama and at the end of March at the Tecate Pal Norte festival in Monterrey, Mexico, and will continue their tour through Phoenix, El Paso, Austin, Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, Boston and other cities in the United States. as well as in Montreal and Toronto, in Canada.
FUENTE: AP
