The mystery of the eternally young Manu Chao reveals itself in Maassilo in Rotterdam

If you walk onto the stage as a winner, cheering, shouting, exuberant as if you have just become world champion, then you cannot lose anymore. Manu Chao arrived like this on Monday evening in Rotterdam: full of zest, zest for life and energy, and he managed to maintain that for more than two hours during a hot-blooded, magical evening.

It was a rare glimpse of his magic, because Manu Chao doesn’t tour that much and this was only his eighth show in the Netherlands. He already played in Rotterdam in 2013, but that was a huge popular festival with 50,000 people. Now he had planned an acoustic evening for 1,700 people in the Maassilo with Argentinian guitarist Lucky Salvadori and Spanish percussionist Miguel Rumbao. But subdued strumming on a guitar is not for Manu Chao (62!), who always has a party.

With his sleeveless sports shirt, three-quarter jeans, army cap and crinkled smile, he shouted ‘¡Uno dos tres cuatro!’ and hey, it was a party. The three played on acoustic instruments and they may have been sitting, but their sound and charisma on this stage were enough to make the timeless charm of his songs work in a pounding mix of ska, rock, punk and world music as if they were in a large festival tent. stood.

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Turn up the temperature

Early on, the sex worker ode ‘Me Llaman Calle’ was sung loudly, as was ‘La Vida Tombola’, the sweet song about his hero Maradona. With some new songs (a new album will be released later this year) and songs that could be his or others’, they built up to his big hits, constantly raising the temperature. Every time a song seemed to end, they excited the audience by starting the song again, charged with applause and something more energetic and cheerful. A trick, but it works incredibly well.

When four horn players come on stage around ‘Mala Vida’, the hit by his former band Mano Negra, circus Chao is complete. In that composition they played some more songs from his first two solo albums, but with double the intensity. ‘Mentira’, ‘Mr Bobby’, the beautiful ‘Clandestino’ and mega hit ‘Me Gustas Tu’ all flowed into each other, often glued together with Fiorenzo Carpi’s Pinocchio song, which Chao turned into an irresistible song, no matter how many times it came back. ‘Lo lo! Lo lo! Lo-lo lo-lo lo-lolooo’. It became a thundering train that you didn’t want to get off.

‘I want more!’ Manu Chao chants after more than two hours of playing

Wildest stories

There is always mystery surrounding Manu Chao, who the wildest stories are about. But perhaps the biggest mystery is his eternal youth, because what is the real difference between the thirty-something who completely turned Lowlands upside down in 2001 and the sixty-something who now stood in Rotterdam? A few crow’s feet. Perhaps it is his attitude to life: embracing everyone, always looking out for those who are ignored by the rest, never denying your ideals and settling for what is left to live on.

‘I want more! I want more!‘, he chanted himself after more than two hours of playing. And even when the lights and music in the hall have already come on, he continues to jump and sing along on stage for minutes – just as he came on – keeping up the energy for a while. The wind comes, the wind goes, and you never know when Manu Chao will return, but his magic is forever.

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