The people sing loudly, Julieta Venegas does so delicately dressed in red in front of a sea of people who have gathered since the afternoon fell, since the young singer-songwriter Laura Itandehui stood on the stage, still during the day, alone with her guitar.
Itandehui was in charge of starting the sixth edition of the Tiempo de Mujeres 2024 Festival, a free event organized by the Government of Mexico City.
Venegas, along with other artists, filled the 46,800 square meters of the capital's plaza with music for more than three hours this Saturday, March 16.
“It's the first time I've played at the Zócalo.
It's very much like Ah!
It's something huge in every sense," said Julieta Venegas (Long Beach, 53 years old) a few hours before the concert in the anteroom on the fifth floor of the hotel where the Mexican-American is staying.
Just after doing the last sound check, the city burns under the radiant midday sun and suffocates in the shadows.
“I wanted to present the
show
I'm doing.
For me it's like closing a long cycle of this album (
Tu historia
) and when the possibility of playing it came up it was like, 'how strong the symbolism of being able to play it here'.
People look at me and say 'Why are you like this?'” she says with a smile.
“I'm very like... between excited and nervous.
“Many things are mixed up in me.”
Her eyes smile even when she expresses herself with a serene face, she raises her voice when she says the words “Zócalo”, “touch”, “Mexico City”.
“I come to Mexico quite often.
In January I was on vacation with my daughter.
It's always nice to come, (but she) has an extra amount of excitement coming to play.”
Venegas has lived with his daughter in Buenos Aires, Argentina, for six years.
Her twin sister, Yvonne, told this newspaper in 2020 that the singer was sick in Mexico, “she was not happy, and she went to Argentina and she is divine.”
At that time Julieta Venegas released two albums on the market,
La enamorada
and
Tu historia
.
Settlement in the city of Buenos Aires made her reconnect with that part of wanting to play live after a year away from the stage.
His songs are timeless.
She wrote the album
HERE
in 1997, when she was 27 years old.
It was an amalgamation of genres such as reggae, rock and trip hop.
In 2003,
Yes
, her third studio effort made her a global star.
At that time, Facebook, YouTube or streaming
services did not yet exist
, the iPod was slowly filtering into people's pockets, the way to message was to send emails and it was almost time for BlackBerry mobile phones to displace Nokia as the most used devices.
I need the things I write to cross me in some way
If you want a little bit of me/ You should wait for me/ And walk at a slow pace
.
This is how Lento
begins
, the first piece on the album
Sí
.
The message is clear and simple regardless of the year in which the song is heard.
“I talk a lot about human relationships, when I write I think about something that has happened to me, to my sister, to someone I know,” Venegas told the eternal Cristina Pacheco in 1998. Ten albums after that interview, her processes to compose have not changed.
“I've tried to experiment over the years with other ways of writing, but I find that I always come back to a place where I need to be feeling what I'm saying.
In that sense, perhaps I have a certain immaturity as a composer in not being able to get away (from myself) and be more objective or be a third person who tells a story,” she reflects.
“I need things to cross me in some way.”
On Saturday, March 16, Julieta Venegas performed at the Zócalo in Mexico City as part of the festival for equality "Tiempo de mujeres." Ana Chirino
The depth with which Venegas expresses herself, when composing and speaking, shows that she spends hours alienated in the pages of books.
His father, José Luis Venegas, assures that his daughter reads 10 hours a day.
“My dad is an exaggerator,” he remarks with a deep and jovial look.
But, reading is an essential part of it.
“When I can, I do read for about three hours.
I have seasons, now that I'm traveling and going through tremendous things, I haven't had the head for that.
But, I do need that routine, honestly.
It's like a need that I have,” he concludes.
It is inevitable that the conversations during these days will not lean towards the political side.
There are 11 weeks left until the Mexican people go out to vote for their first female president in history, unless something extraordinary happens.
“It doesn't matter if you are from the right or the left, you see an election that has already been said: you are going to vote for a woman,” the music muses.
“I hope it doesn't just remain in symbolism.
I hope that this begins to shake the structures that have us trapped and trapped, where women are not taken into account in society from the structures of justice, family, and everyday life.”
Her words could be those of any Mexican woman who seeks hope in the election of a woman in the presidential leadership.
“It is incredible to see it symbolically and poetically, but we continue to be a very misogynistic country with many structural problems that we have not even managed to move.
I hope that many things will be shaken with this.”
In March 2020, Julieta Venegas published the single
Mujeres
, a song about what it means to be a woman in Mexico.
Any figure regarding sexist violence usually falls short.
Currently between ten and 11 women are murdered every day, the impunity rate exceeds 95% and only one in 10 victims dares to report their attacker due to fear and lack of trust in the authorities.
Women are revealing themselves / Men don't know what to do,
sings the single's chorus.
What can men do to support and not hinder?
“We are men and women who have to change things, not just women.
I mention it a lot in songs I have on the subject.
The first thing is to review what we take for granted, in our way of reasoning, 'that's just the way I am', we say and that's not right.
Especially in the issues of relationships, intimacy and everyday life is where we have to start to fix the issue and change how we are perceived and treated.”
What started with a girl in Tijuana who one day fell in love with music, sitting in front of the piano, reading scores of classical pieces, became one of the most important artists internationally.
Julieta has 10 Latin Grammys under her belt, concerts all over the world, and has accompanied legendary bands such as Soda Stereo, for which she opened in 1997 and 2020. Already in the nineties, the music of the Tijuana/North American singer showed something profound , both in composition and arrangements.
It wasn't rock, it wasn't pop either.
It was, simply, Julieta Venegas.
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