Argentine musician Fito Paez delivered a special two-and-a-half-hour concert accompanied by a string orchestra at the Teatro Real in Madrid on Wednesday.
The show, titled Clasico, featured a selection of his greatest hits alongside tributes to major Latin American songwriters as part of a brief break in his international tour.
Paez opened the performance by stating that the Madrid date represented the closing of an energetic circle. He revisited a broad portion of his musical career during the set, performing well-known songs including 11 y 6, Al lado del camino, Llueve sobre mojado, Caravela de la nada, and Ciudad de pobres corazones.
Born in Rosario, Argentina, Fito Paez is one of the most prominent figures in Latin American rock music. The Teatro Real, located in the heart of Madrid opposite the Royal Palace, is Spain's premier opera house, offering an ornate setting whose acoustics highlighted the classical arrangement of the performance.
Tributes to Latin American icons
During the concert, Paez paid tribute to several influential figures across Latin American music, starting with artists from his home country. He described Argentina as a complex machine that is musically and poetically beautiful, adding that it remains a place he must always return to and calling it his refuge.
He performed Muchacha ojos de papel by his friend Luis Alberto Spinetta, as well as Cancion para mi muerte and Desarma y sangra by Charly Garcia. Speaking about Desarma y sangra, which addresses the Argentine military dictatorship, Paez highlighted its ongoing relevance today.
Both Spinetta and Garcia are widely recognized as pioneer figures of Argentine rock nacional, a musical movement that gained prominence across South America starting in the late 1960s.
Expanding his repertoire beyond rock, Paez performed classic Argentine folklore pieces, including El andar by Atahualpa Yupanqui and La ultima curda by Anibal Troilo. He then turned to wider regional classics, playing Te recuerdo Amanda by Chilean singer Victor Jara, El breve espacio by Cuban musician Pablo Milanes, and Construccion by Brazilian artist Chico Buarque.
The evening also featured a musical tribute to Spanish poet and playwright Federico Garcia Lorca. Paez sang Romance de la pena negra in honor of Lorca's work, noting that ninety years have passed since the poet's assassination.
Lorca, one of Spain's most celebrated 20th-century literary figures, was killed in 1936 near Granada during the early weeks of the Spanish Civil War.
New material and crowd reaction
The Madrid performance came after Paez completed five months of touring across Argentina, Colombia, and Uruguay to promote his new album, Shine. He took the opportunity at the Teatro Real to perform three tracks from the project, including the title song Shine, El honor de los lobos, and Las fuerzas armadas del amor.
Despite thanking the audience for their warmth, Paez chose to communicate primarily through music and quiet pauses throughout much of the show. The enthusiastic crowd responded with repeated chants of his name, filling the hall with rhythmic applause.
The venue's seating layout prompted some concertgoers in balcony seats with restricted views to stand up and crouch beneath the railing on the second floor so they would not miss any part of the performance.
Near the end of the concert, Paez declared to the crowd that he had exorcised Madrid. He concluded the evening with a standing ovation after performing two of his most iconic songs: Mariposa tecknicolor, which the audience sang along to while standing, and an a cappella rendition of Yo vengo a ofrecer mi corazon.
The Madrid show is one of two special concerts scheduled during a pause in Paez's broader Sale el sol tour. His second special performance takes place on Thursday at the Palau de la Musica in Barcelona, where he will perform accompanied solely by a piano, before resuming his international tour on September 27 in Paraguay.
