Silvana Estrada’s concert last Saturday in Botanique was my first concert in Spanish that I attended in Brussels, even though Silvana is from México. Before attending the concert, I heard some of her songs and I was already hooked. She also plays her cuatro venezolano that was made by her father, and sometimes guitar, that she’s recently learning how to play. Silvana was in Belgium for the second time, singing to sadness to make it go away, or to learn how to forget a love, always engaging the audience to sing with her and who knew most of her songs word by word. She even played a new song, “Dime”, and another one about miracles and disasters, an intense love song that saved her on a down moment last year, after losing one of the most important people in her life. That song is there to teach us how a disaster can make you appreciate better other miracles like love, life, being alive, and even honouring the ones who already passed away. One of the sweetest moments of the night was when she sang the first song she ever wrote, about her first love, and how if she would ever meet him again, that she would be waiting, and he was actually there because they became a couple. Another magic moment was when she sang, with all the audience as a choir, the Mexican version of Happy birthday to someone in the public. At the end, she spotted two kids of 7 and 9 years old, who were big fans of her, and invited them to come on stage to sing with her. She was surrounded by Roberto Verástegui (Keys) and Alex Lozano (drums), who played beautiful solos throughout the night.
The opening act of the night were Triana and Luca. This Benelux based duo merges poetry with storytelling and melancholic melodies with traditional music, singing about migration in their song “Raiz”, about how to find yourself, internally or in other people, together with the love story of her grandparents telling how her grandma threw a date to whom will become her future partner, and soon after they had to flee to Mexico because of the Civil war. As in the performance of Silvana, this duo also used the traditional cuatro venezolano, and they are releasing a new album this month.
Silvana Estrada
Triana y Luca
Zaterdag 10 juni 2023, Le Botanique (Brussel, BE) | Foto's & tekst: Cristina Vergara