III Encuentro Internacional de Canción de Autor

III Encuentro Internacional de Canción de Autor^*, organised by Paolo Latrónica and friends, was taking place most of the last week throughout Santander. For me, it was the first ever music festival where I managed to attend every single event (of six). Good thing it was free.

• 11 November: Gustavo Almeida (Brazil) + Cierto Pablo @ Canela Bar, Plaza de Cañadio
  Yes I know, the canción de autor simply has to have a certain degree of amateurism. Gustavo, however, has delivered easily the most professionally-sounding gig of the Encuentro, without compromising the spirit of the genre. Great job.
• 12 November: Ida Susal + Javi Botanz @ Rubicón, Calle del Sol 4
  I went there with my friends and we all enjoyed this evening a lot. Javi Botanz and Julia Botanz Guimerá have completely different styles: the former is more like a blues-rocker, the latter is a bit like cabaret chanteuse, but they were working together like a charm (or three charms).
• 13 November: Claudio H (Argentina) + Yael Gaitero @ Escalera 41, Calle San Celedonio 41
  I loved that performance. Claudio H and friends were rocking! At the same time, I discovered a cozy and inexpensive pub.
• 14 November: Julio Hernández (Cuba) + Paolo Latrónica @ Restaurante Bodegas Mazón, Calle Hernán Cortés 57
  Another great gig, but, in my view, inherently wrong venue for this (or maybe any) sort of concert. I would prefer a small bar where people listen to a big restaurant where people, well, mostly eat.
• 15 November: Linker vs Latrónica @ La Nave Que Late, Calle Antonio López 66
  La Nave Que Late is a curious venue, apparently a former hangar converted into el espacio cultural. Currently, there is an entertaining exhibition of “e-robots” made from diverse industrial junk. It could be even better if the visitors treated it as an enclosed space that it is and refrained from smoking there. After the concert, there were some short films (?) to be shown but I never learned what it was about as the laptop and its owner had disappeared, nobody noticed at what point. Charming.
• 16 November: Tincho Fernan (Uruguay) + Nuria González @ Cientocero, Calle Río de la Pila 20
  It was raining all day on Sunday, so Tincho and Nuria and guests (sorry don’t know their names) brightened it up. I guess the concert would be better attended if it were in the evening rather than in the early afternoon. Then again, there is not much space in Cientocero.

^* The Spanish term canción de autor (or Russian авторская песня) does not have a good English equivalent. Nor is “singer-songwriter” the same as cantautor (a portmanteau of cantante and autor). One has every right to call Cab Calloway, Gary Moore and Shakira “singers-songwriters”, but they are definitely not cantautores.