SOUNDTRACK: JUANES AND MON LAFERTE-Tiny Desk Concert #746 (May 23, 2018).
Juanes did a solo Tiny Desk Concert back in 2011. Amusingly, seven years ago the blurb said: The blurb says that “he usually plays arenas and large venues, so it’s a treat to see him up close like this,” (see the third quoted paragraph below).
Colombian pop star Juanes and Chilean singer Mon Laferte recently wrapped up a sold-out tour of the United States, which (lucky for us) included a stop at the Tiny Desk.
Laferte began the concert solo with the torch song “Pa’ Dónde Se Fue” (Where Did You Go?). She sang the break-up story with a smirk that belied the heartache hiding in her poignant lyrics. Then… Juanes joined her to perform the duo’s sultry single, “Amárrame” (Tie Me Up).
It’s rare to see Juanes in such an intimate setting. After almost two decades of performing solo, the Latin pop star is more of a stadium and arena kind of guy. It’s a treat to hear his voice unencumbered by loud speakers or crowd noise, and to see his facial expressions as he sings lyrics that many of us know by heart. This marked a return to the intimacy that fueled his earliest days and that’s still present in the personal lyrics that have sold millions of records.
That intimacy was heightened by the presence of Laferte. The duo performed a PG-13 version of “Amárrame,” a passionate pop song with lyrics reminiscent of 50 Shades Of Grey. You can sense an obvious chemistry between the two during that song, as well as on the Juanes classic “Fotografia” (which originally featured Nelly Furtado).
Juanes closed out the concert solo with a stripped-down version of “Es Tarde” from his last album, Mis Planes Son Amarte. The performance demonstrates why Juanes and Laferte’s duet tour sold out across the U.S. this year. There is a magic here that makes for repeated viewing. It’s that much fun to watch.
SET LIST
- “Pa’ Dónde Se Fue” (Where Did You Go?) by Mon Laferte. She sings and plays guitar and has a beautiful, powerful voice.
- “Amárrame {Tie Me Up} [feat. Juanes]” by Mon Laferte. An additional guitarist plays the cool funky riff while Mon Laferte sings (and rolls her r’s beautifully). Juanes sings (and makes some asides, “Mon Dios!”) the (beautiful, soaring) chorus and alternating verses. They sound fantastic together, with his voice being particularly sultry and steamy.
- “Fotografía [feat. Mon Laferte]” by Juanes. This is a sweet ballad, with again both singers playing off of each other and joking with each other (there’s a phone gag that is pretty funny). It’s delightful. And their voices meld perfectly once again.
- “Es Tarde” by Juanes. It’s just him singing on this one (with the guitarist on accompaniment). His voice has a slight gravel to it but is mostly smooth and delightful. The middle of the song has a kind of whispered spoken word. It’s quite obvious why he is a megastar.
[READ: January 22, 2017] “The End of the End of the World”
This is an essay about birding in the Antarctic and the death of Franzen’s Uncle Walt. Both of these stories were fascinating.
Two year earlier, Franzen’s Uncle Walt died and left hims $78,000. Wow. (My uncle left me a pitchfork and sheep shears). He wasn’t expecting it, so he decided to do something special with it in honor of his Uncle. He had been planning a big vacation with his longtime girlfriend, so this seemed like the thing to us it for. When he suggested a deluxe cruise to Antarctica, she was puzzled but agreed.
After booking the cruise, he was filled with reservations, and so was she. Her concerns were more serious–an ailing parent–and his were just nerves.
He intersperses this trip with memories of his Uncle. Like in August of 1976 when he found out that Walt’s daughter had died in a car crash. Walt and his wife Irma were his godparents, although his mother couldn’t stand Irma (Franzen’s father’s sister). She said that Irma had been spoiled at the expense of his father. Walt was far more likable anyhow.
Franzen’s father had had Alzheimer’s before he died. When Irma was similarly diagnosed, Walt reached out to Franzen’s mother for advice. They discovered that they had a lot in common–“each was an optimistic lover of life, long married to a rigid and depressive Franzen.” There was even the possibility of a romance, but her health declined rapidly and nothing could be done. Franzen says that it was his mother who made him realize was a great gut Walt was. Soon enough the two men became friends.
The bulk of the middle of the article is taken up with Franzen aboard ship His girlfriend couldn’t go because of the parental situation, so his brother wound up going with him). People who like to compare Franzen and David Foster Wallace will no doubt have a field day with Franzen’s “cruise ship” article, but the only similarity is that they were both solitary and fairly antisocial and were both way out of their element.
Franzen is a birder and his main focus on the trip was to log as many birds as he could–there were so many birds that could only be seen down here. He was dismayed to find that only two other birders were on board–which meant diminishing chances of them doing much about birds on the trip.
The curmudgeon in Franzen comes out when he pooh poohs everyone for all of their cameras–he refused to brig one. He realized that a National Geographic boat was not necessarily there for science so much taking great pictures and videos “My sense of being a problem passenger deepened.” There was also much talk of Ernest Shackleton–and possibly trying to recreate some of his epic journey.
But unlike Wallace, Franzen was overwhelmed by the destination of their cruise–“I’d never before had the experience of beholding scenic beauty so dazzling that I couldn’t process it, couldn’t get it to register as something real …Nothing man-made could be seen on land or ice or whatever and the engines were inaudible from the observation deck.”
Just as the crew decided to go on a special on-land trek, Franzen became a bigger problem passenger because he spotted what he was sure was an Emperor penguin. He was concerned about being wrong of course–he had only caught a glimpse–but on closer look they concurred that it was an emperor penguin. The captain was so excited that after “emitting further whoops, he danced a jig, and actual jig, and then hurried of to the Zodiacs to have a closer look.”
They went to the penguin and Franzen describes meeting it–four feet tall and majestic. And apparently friendly–they are not afraid of humans, because they have had no reason to fear them. It tobogganed towards them on its belly, then scratched behind its ear with one foot while standing fully erect on the other. And then as if to underline how conformable it felt with them, it fell asleep.
Franzen was soon lauded as the hero, not the problem passenger. And people were stopping him and thanking him for spotting the penguin. “I wondered if all my life, in my refusal to be a joiner, I’d missed out on some essential human thing.”
Back to Uncle Walt who was always a joiner. A fun-loving guy, he married Irma very young and realized soon after that he’d made a mistake: it wasn’t just that her parents had spoiled her, she was an implacable social striver who hated and denied her background as much as he loved and celebrated his own; she was unbearable. Once their daughter was born, his wife became so obsessed with the girl that she never left her alone to do anything.
Just before his daughter was killed, he announced to his wife that he was returning to Minnesotan (they lived in Delaware) with or without her. (The daughter was an adult by then). Walt’s story takes a tragic twist.
Franzen saw many other birds as well–he saw king penguins so close that he could have touched them.
Any article about birds and the antarctic is going to talk about global warming. And this does get to it–although he does say that he didn’t want this article to be all about that. But that is also part of the cruise. Most of the people were concerned for the environment–everyone agreed that the climate was changing–except the two trump supporters. But the presenter was even more intense and dire than An Inconvenient Truth because while that movie was alarming it was also not alarming enough.
There is love and sadness and hope and fear in this article. And there are also discussions about families and penguins. It was a very enjoyable piece.
I Just Read About That... 
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