No one can even come close to imitating Shakira’s hip-shaking moves, which she turned on at Rock in Rio for a music festival that adores her and fans that idolize her.
Coming onstage after rock star Lenny Kravitz in the cool air of Rio before dawn, the Colombian diva had only to burst into her first number and begin moving that pelvis for her legion of fans, exhausted by hours of partying, to let the good times roll once more. “Tonight I’m all yours,” the Barranquilla native cried out to the audience to wake up their rocker spirit.
In a bare-bones concert totally lacking in complicated stagecraft, Shakira, who opened the night with “Estoy Aqui” (Here I Am), got 100,000 fans on their feet and shaking their hips with a repertoire of hits that was all she needed to keep her love affair with Rock in Rio going for another year after her performances in the Lisbon and Madrid editions.
Perhaps to make up with Madrid fans, the singer, now the muse of all that is Barcelona, chose “Te Dejo Madrid” (I Leave You Madrid) as one of the numbers in a show that relied heavily on her classics of years gone by rather than numbers from “Sale el Sol” (Sunrise), her latest disc.
With the audience entranced by that body in perpetual motion, the Colombian grabbed her guitar to sing “Inevitable.”Either because soccer in Brazil is considered a religion or because her boyfriend Gerard Pique is a soccer player for FC Barcelona, Shakira wrapped up her performance combining music and soccer with “Waka Waka,” the official song of the the 2010 World Cup of soccer in South Africa, in a scene of wild euphoria.
Along the way, the Colombian singer brought out her big guns to show her power with hits like “Gypsy”, “Loba” (She-Wolf), “Las de la Intuicion” (Matters of Intuition), “Loca” and “My Hips Don’t Lie”, with which she put the public in her pocket. There’s little doubt that going onstage before the Colombian diva dimmed Lenny Kravitz’s aura of stardom at the festival. He gave a good but unremarkable concert marked in part by songs from this latest disc, which were received without great enthusiasm.
The American singer did give his fans what they were waiting for with three of his best-known numbers: “It Ain’t Over Till It’s Over”, “American Woman” and “Fly Away.”
Kravitz finished up his performance with “Let Love Rule”, moving among the crowd, turning on the sex appeal and carrying the Brazilian flag on one shoulder, which won him cheers and applause as he left the stage.