“I thank the Virgin, I thank the Lord, because amidst so much hardship and having lost so much, I did not lose my love for singing nor my voice as a singer,” says the book La vuelta de Martín Fierro, by José Hernández. The same verses that Andrés Calamaro took to include in his song Estadio Azteca and that now name his new tour bringing him to Chile: Como cantor.
The tour will arrive this August 25, with a concert at the Movistar Arena, just three days after the musician’s 65th birthday. At first glance, the name of the tour might suggest a nostalgic look at the past, especially since it is a repertoire built on some of the great classics of his career and Argentine rock. But Calamaro resists that interpretation.
“I do not practice nostalgia, the time has not come for me or I am not interested, it kidnaps the present. I usually do not long for other times that have already passed, remembering previous eras is something I do not do at the moment,” he recently stated in an extensive interview with Infobae in April of this year.
“It is different to sing timeless songs because live music is changing, we improvise and it never sounds the same twice, it is a craft where we improve more than by making songs and recordings,” he added.
In 2025, a column published inEl País reflected on how some artists had stopped releasing albums. Among them was El Salmón. And indeed, Calamaro’s last collection of unreleased songs dates back to 2018, when he released Cargar la suerte.
Three years later came Dios los cría, an album of collaborations in which he revisited part of his repertoire alongside artists like Alejandro Sanz, Julio Iglesias, Mon Laferte, and other guests. Since then, he has not released a new album of songs.
Part of the explanation lies in the very transformation of his relationship with recorded music. Como cantor is, in that sense, the expression of a musician who today seems much more interested in the stage than in adding new titles to his discography.
For him, the album lost part of the practical meaning it once had. This is particularly significant coming from an artist who in 2000 released El Salmón, a five-disc album that gathered 103 songs and became one of the most excessive works of his career.
“Before, we valued recording an album as a miracle or odyssey, now they say fifty thousand songs are published per day on platforms and we perceive that attention is scattered and it is complicated to guess who listens to a recording to which we dedicated months or years,” he explained to Infobae.
That is why his present is focused on the stage. Calamaro reclaims his role as a performer and the possibility that each concert is a different experience. “Live music is ‘real time.’ I interpret with a bullfighter’s concept: the clash (meeting) between silence and sonorous music, the mystery of encountering something different at each recital, improvisation and the concept in the circumstance,” he explained, alluding to bullfighting, one of his long-standing passions and also one of the facets that has earned him the most criticism in recent years.
After touring Argentina and closing a series of four concerts at the Movistar Arena in Buenos Aires during May and June, Andrés Calamaro will arrive in Chile this August 25 to present Como cantor.
Reviews from Argentine media, including La Nación, have highlighted the musician’s performance and the solidity of the show. With few interventions between songs, Calamaro focuses on covering a good part of his repertoire, with classics from his solo stage like Loco and Pasemos a otro tema.
There is also room for songs from his time with Los Abuelos de la Nada, like Costumbres argentinas, as well as songs from Los Rodríguez, including Sin documentos and Mi enfermedad.
One of the highlights of this tour is precisely in recovering songs that had been out of his concerts for years. La Nación highlighted the return of Tres Marías, a song Calamaro had not performed live since 2013, as well as the reincorporation of Mil horas, one of the classics from his time with Los Abuelos de la Nada.
Living up to the name of his tour, the artist at 65 years old is focused on singing without losing the passion for the unpredictability of live performance. Andrés Calamaro’s concert will take place at the Movistar Arena at 9 p.m. and tickets are still available at PuntoTicket.
