Tuesday afternoon, Lido Pimienta was live-streaming on Youtube as LidoTV. I thought that it would be a pre-recorded show but was pleasantly surprised that it was live. Her team had built a "living room" with bright, kitschy décor including several of her artwork on the walls. Over the next hour, Pimienta enthralled her audience with songs from her latest release Miss Colombia.
With only her on stage, she found a way to make both the music and the visuals engaging. There were multiple cameras but they weren't intrusive. One even offered a kaleidoscopic effect now and then. On the audio side, it wasn't all backing tracks. Piementa used live looping to layer multiple vocals during her performance. This made songs including her 2 singles from this album: Nada and Eso Que Tu Haces as well as numbers like Pelo Cucu and Resisto Y Va interesting and different from the album.
There were even several costume changes. During these breaks, they aired videos of a "Lido Shopping Network" where she attempted to (wink) sell merchandise. Her sales patter became increasingly surreal and absurd as Pimienta implored her fans to buy vinyls (you won't play them, so hang them as paintings), CDs (having 3 kids is expensive, she's in debt to her record label), and calendars or small prints of her artwork (give them to your parents, they won't use it, so you can take them back later, it's like a double gift). Her natural humour translated perfectly to the screen.
The audience loved both the over-the-top antics and the singing. They were watching from around the world, though most were from Spanish-speaking countries. The dearth of local fans (i.e., Canadians) despite her credentials: a previous record won the Polaris prize, the new one was short-listed for the Polaris as well as a recent Grammy nomination, was puzzling. It reminded me of numerous Toronto musicians who only found success after leaving Canada such as Stacey, Allie X (L.A.), and Michelle Guverich (Berlin).
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