A chord that sounded raw, dry, without more amplification than the woody skeleton of a guitar, was the wake-up call. And immediately the audience at Nescafé de las Artes looked towards the entrance of the hall. There was Angelo Pierattini, with his guitar hanging. He walked towards the stage, his voice loud and a song that sounded more coherent than ever.
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“There’s nothing more/That can explain/Simple things are made to lie/There’s nothing more,” the respectable crowd chanted, accompanying Pierattini to sing Las Cosas Simples. A song he wrote at 20 years old and that tonight sounded relevant to the celebration of life and the miracle of music.
With that gesture, so theatrical and accurate, Pierattini’s presentation began at the venue on Manuel Montt street. El regreso del guerrero (The Return of the Warrior), is the name of this concert, given that it is the first major public performance by the renowned Chilean musician after recovering from the severe car accident that kept him hospitalized.
The embrace of reunion crossed the presentation, structured as a review of Pierattini’s career. Accompanied on stage by the band with whom he recorded his last self-titled album; Diego Peralta on electric bass, Felipe “Metraca” Salas on drums, Pablo Jara on electric guitar, and Dominga Corral on accordion. And accompanied, above all, by the audience that filled the hall.
With that well-oiled band, Pierattini reviews some key moments of his discography. The musician looks very vital, singing without problems and maintaining the usual full tone he extracts from his Stratocaster. He shows practically no sequelae from his brutal accident, which denotes the discipline with which he approached his recovery.
On his hands, Pierattini wears the fighter’s bandages with which he was photographed for his last album and in the promotional photos for the show. It won’t be long before he takes them off. Meanwhile, on stage, the band performs songs like the always emotional Que simple vibra nuestro amor, or cuts from his latest album, like La Fiesta, which grow live.
“Good evening, here I am -he greets in the first moment of respite-. I’m still alive, guys, thanks for this night.”
And he moves on to the first guest of the show, Tata Barahona. Together, they sing in harmony Carita de gato, that remarkable song that Jorge González produced on Mi destino, an album of reinvention that in some way resonates with Pierattini’s current moment. Although in its studio version the guest is Diego Lorenzini, in Barahona’s voice the song sounds just as vulnerable.
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A notable interpretation of Lo que se ve no se pregunta follows, another cut from the latest album, which takes on a different height in its live performance, sounding more compact and rockier, although the accordion stands out. Pierattini feels every note of his unleashed electric guitar solo in his bones. So much so that he gets fired up and invites people from the audience to try their luck attempting to tame his Stratocaster, which seems to shoot flames of distortion. Three individuals go up on stage, almost living out Marty McFly’s fantasy of playing Jonny B. Goode.
Another guest, Carlos Cabezas, comes on to perform El adiós, a song from their joint project, Cordillera. Both voices, laden with bass, blend well and sound powerful.
Shortly after, the stage clears, and two chairs are set up. Pierattini and Pablo Ilabaca, an eternal accomplice in musical adventures since they met as students of maestro Luis Advis, sit there. With their respective acoustic guitars, they perform Tontos bichos de hoy, from the days of Las calaveras errantes. A very particular moment follows, with the interpretation of En mi vida, a reinterpretation by Pierattini of The Beatles’ In my life. Ilabaca shines on the keyboard (even performing the solo, very similar to the original recorded by George Martin). A nod to his Beatle heart and a friendship aged in songs.
The show transitions to the most unleashed segment, with a review of some cuts from the Weichafe catalog. For this, Pierattini calls a different band, with Ed Quiroz on drums and “Chino” Vargas on bass. In addition to the reinforcement of Pablo Jara, they perform songs like Respiro la luz del sol (with its introduction that evokes Highway Star), Pan de la tarde, La fuerza viene de la tierra and, of course, that anthem that is Ripio y soledad. “Weichaaaafe, weichafeee,” shouts the crowd’s chant, as if reminiscing about old times.
Back with the original band, Pierattini surprises with a new composition, No estoy muerto espero (I’m not dead, I hope). A song in which he reviews his recent past, as the restless singer-songwriter’s response to what he experienced. “I looked at you when I woke up/you were smiling at me/tears of love healed my wounds, all my wounds,” he sings. It is a luminous song, with a midtempo beat and Latin American sound. A creation that sounds like a continuation of what the musician proposed in his last album and probably, traces his most immediate path.
Towards the end, when he sings Amor por mi condena (Love for my sentence) sitting on one of the theater’s steps, he ends up singing it to an old History teacher from his school days who was present in the audience. Life gives you surprises, as an old salsa song used to say, and for Pierattini they don’t seem to end. He crowned a night that was lived as a reunion with the taste of a party. Like that friend who returns from a trip, where he looked death in the face and evaded it with songs.
