Forty degrees past 22.30. The embarrassment squeezed in the Plaza de España in Seville and although he invited to sweat at 16,000 people who crowded the enclosure designed by Anibal González for the universal exhibition of 1929, he only took off the jacket on the last theme. If he was hot, he only noticed in the sweat that began to appear on his face in the Ecuador of the show. In the hour and a half that lasted his only concert in Spain after 20 years without visiting our country, the American interpreter did not stop singing, dancing or smiling. A waste of energy at the rhythm of R&B and Funk with which he got into the public in his pocket.
And to a large extent because he attracted his attention from the beginning with some of the songs of his first solo albums –Justified, FutureSex/LoveSound y The 20/20 experience— that have become hymns of pop of the first decade of the 21st century and who were the ones who knew how to humcase most of the attendees. He started with Mirrors, that linked without continuity solution with Cry me a River. And he did not need more: Seville was delivered and not only because the public felt recognized in that millennial nostalgia that invaded Maria Luisa’s park, but because Timberlake gave them from the first moment their repertoire of unattainable movements and acute, wrapped, wrapped, yes, by the 14 musicians of the powerful band that accompanied him, The Tennessee Kids.
With this concert, Timberlake not only returned to Spain, but inaugurated the fifth edition of the iconica Santalucía Sevilla Fest, a contest that, as highlighted by its director, Javier Esteban ,, to the point of being the third event in economic impact, after Holy Week and the fair.
The objective of this tour, The Forget Tomorrow Tour, was to promote his last album, Everything I Thought It Was, premiered in March last year, and with which Timberlake intended to return to the top of dodge lists for almost a decade. , perhaps also because of the adversities that have been accumulating throughout 2024: first, the memoirs of his former Britney Spears, who revealed that he urged her to abort, thus demystifying the version he gave in Cry me a riverwhere he presented her as unfaithful; And then, and above all, for his arrest while driving drunk. In fact, many of this Friday’s concert attendees in Seville did not know that the singer had taken new album.
And he probably did not know and that’s why he focused most of his repertoire on his great successes. And he was not wrong, because the new issues –No Angels, Play and a beautiful acoustic of Selfishthree out of twenty – were barely followed by the public, which seemed until a bit absent at the time, but, however, fell with My Love, Summer Love o Suit&Tie. “How many have accompanied me these last 25 or 30 years? I want to show you my gratitude and how much I love you with this when I was little. Thank you for making the dreams of a Tennessee boy come true,” Timberlake was sincere.
Listening to the songs that ratified him as a star, after passing through the boyband Nsync, somehow, the Sevillian public was rolled back two decades ago, when those songs accompanied a time of hope where in the future the great recession was not glimpsed or an almost perpetual precariousness that has made that millennial generation when they listened to Timberlake, then turned into the golden boy of world pop. But that melancholy did not move to the stage. From his performance he did not detach at all that Timberlake is an artist in decline. On the contrary, it was a perfect showman. Incombustible and impeccable in each of his interpretations, he infected his enthusiasm to the entire Plaza de España.
Moreover, the singer, who sometimes reproaches his lack of interconnection with the public, did not stop talking with him, encouraging him to chant football chants. He even invited the happy birthday to a follower who, poster in hand, asked him to get a selfie as a gift from his…. They have guessed: 40th anniversary. More or less, the average age of most of those present. “We are going to sing, to dance, to fall in love, to dance and sing more,” he encouraged them, abusing his spicy smile.
The moment of greater communion came when the first chords of Can´t stop the feeling, of the soundtrack of Trolls And his last great success, one of the few songs that were chanted almost from beginning to end. It was also interesting the microsion that pricked the DJ Andrew Hypes, which usually accompanies Timberlake on his tours, and that mixed some of the best known collaborations of the singer, with 50 cent, Nelly Furtado or Madonna -of when there was no producer or interpreter who did not want to have a theme with him, again the nostalgia- and those that the trumpet and the trombone of The Tennessee Kid They gave a different and surprisingly fastened dimension.
But Timberlake not only sang and danced, he also took the guitar in My Love y Selfish And he put behind the keyboards with Miss. An issue in which the virtuosity of the metals and the percussion of the band, which stole the prominence to the interpreter. The musicians and the four singers who accompanied him were also, to some extent, accomplices that Timberlake could cover up his voice with them and take breath in the midst of so many steps and choreography. But every time the microphone was put in front of the mouth, he showed that his falsettes and his vocal power are still untouched.
The climax arrived with an apotheosic Sexy beatwhere Timberlake had no choice but to take off the hunter. The singer ended a dynamic, entertaining and very evocative performance.
