The artist tends to look for countless ways to capture the audience: concrete communication codes (directed to a cultural sector), eye-catching scenographies or omnipotent bands to accompany the musicians (as Anari himself does with his band). But when the artist, in his nakedness and with a guitar in his hand, is staged, a raw and direct heart-to-heart relationship with the audience is created. This is where the singer shows, through his inner universe and feelings, how far he has the ability to reach. Everything is at stake from the moment he steps on stage.
The native of Azko showed in Uhagon that he is very adaptable in short distances and without his visible band. He started with the song “Isla” from the “Irla ijan” album, with the duplicated voice of the original and without additional instruments, straight to the heart and with the poetic possibilities accompanying him from the beginning: “A whale that does not move is not its reflection, it is the island itself”. The song itself clearly reveals its own style: the vocalization and the rhythm are slow and marked, the intensity in the progression and, above all, the multi-directional flows that it marks in a delightful tension.
Every song is an explosion, that’s why. Like a wild stream of water that carries you without a remedy, his poetry and charisma immerse you in his own way of thinking. Due to the features we have mentioned, we can almost imagine the battery case in pieces like “How to lose”. Even in this song, the whale and the water were the source to Anak: “How the whale beached on the shore of life water/how you fed it and watered your hand with gold/on its side you blindly and clearly believed in him”. Let’s also take into account that all these words are his own, and that he used his own poetry book throughout the concert, except for “Lagun izoztua” which he recorded on the album in honor of Sarrionaindia.
The sea and the fish… we can’t say that the dive wasn’t passionate: “Even if I fall, I fall back up/how I surface when the fish die/memory is the lead that sinks me now” “Winged Anchors” begins. Anari achieved success with this song and the participation of the audience began to rise until the end of the concert. “Zebra” it would be the only song he played from the album, and the oldest he played in the whole performance, since it was from 2005. In other words, he didn’t play a single one of the first two albums and all but one of the other songs are from the last 14 years. We could say that the bet was risky, therefore, even though his choir has plenty of resources to choose songs from here and there.
“Ephemerideak” from the last single was the most recent one he played. We were also able to almost inspect Ander Mugika, due to the magical notes of the guitar that bear his stamp. We returned to the album “Zure prerkari penalak” with the songs “Ametsen eraiste meurtua”, “Piromania” and “Autodefinitua”, including “Orfidentalak”. We experienced emotional moments with these four songs, as they were guided by both calm and tense moments. He played a total of four songs from the work “Your criminal background” and it was the work with the most representation.
At the end of the songs, he sometimes moved his voice away from the microphone, achieving an effective effect (for example, in the previously mentioned song “Orfidentalak”). Another point: after reading his book “Wheat and Moss”, we feel his words, his inner world (real and fictional) and his thoughts much more deeply. So one more point in his favor: besides being the author of words and music, he has also become a writer. We would say that the words of the last eight years have a direct relationship with his book.
“Reed” and “Harriak”, both “be an island” from the album, we could easily imagine it in his electric repertoire, due to the power of the first one, and the electric drama of the second one, on the other. In 2018, a collective work with the words of Joseba Sarrionandia was published (“Our memories. Musical poems”). There, Anari set to music a poem called “Lagun izoztua”, and Markina played between these last two songs. “And your mind will be more beautiful than that of Ulysses/wherever you go, because every day you return to the place where you have not been”. The sea, winter, whales… present again in the last three songs. You can’t forget the references to nature in his journey, not even the animals: Deer, zebras, horses, fish, whales, Antarctic animals…
“Deer” could have been the first greeting, though to AnaHe himself made it clear that he had no intention of joining the theater of visas, because he thinks it’s pathetic to do those pseudo-farewells. Things are clear, then: he would play two more songs and that would be the end of the show. This last song we have mentioned is representative of his musical evolution, as well as perhaps the testimony of the philosophy of the last two albums. It also has a point of darkness, but at this point in the concert the crowd was already on their feet, including a section that sang all the songs.
No theater for encores, but we had the opportunity to listen to the “Epilogue”. With almost 300,000 listens, it is Anari’s most successful song on spotify. It was really emotional, because we knew it was the last and it immersed us head over heels in that delightful drama.
That being the case, and even though he had a very high level of concentration, we must also remember the moments when he smiled. The native of Azko was greeted by bursts of applause. Despite owning the intensity of his repertoire, he showed the ability to use humor intelligently and bring the audience to their feet. The session of 70 minutes and thirteen songs came to an end.