He was almost cloistered in his native Telde during the long pandemic, but José Vélez, far from putting a stop to half a century as a professional singer, is still very active, as he demonstrated last night on the stage of the Plaza de la Patrona, in his first appearance in the festivities dedicated to the Patron Saint of the Canary Islands, the Virgin of Candelaria. “He had performed many years ago at the Santa Ana festivities, but never before the Virgin of Candelaria,” said the singer in an interview with DIARIO DE AVISOS, shortly before going up to the candlestick stage last night.
He acknowledged that “I am not a practicing Catholic, but I have my faith and I am a great believer in that. It is a great honor for me to sing to the Patron Saint and to all the people of Candelaria, on a beautiful night, with my own musicians and no pre-recorded, a real concert”, said the 70-year-old Teldense, who at the beginning of this century overcame a myocardial infarction, from which he feels recovered “as my controls reflect,” recalls the singer.
José Vélez reviewed for two hours yesterday and before more than three thousand people his long repertoire, dotted with successes in Spain and in almost all of America, from the seventies to now, with nations such as Greek wine (his first great success in America, in 1975), Canarito, Let’s dance a waltz or I try to forget you that “they are no longer my songs but the people’s, so much so that sometimes they sing them better than me when I ask them for the chorus or when I forget the lyrics,” he says.
José Vélez, who represented Spain in Eurovision in 1978 (9th with let’s dance a waltz), lived the pandemic with bitterness, despite the fact that “fortunately I did not get COVID, but my family and my wife, Teresa, did”, expressing that “the worst thing is not only the physical damage, but also the psychological one, the consequences that leaves you in the head”. “Fortunately -she adds- it didn’t affect me at all, I knew how to take care of myself and my throat and my voice are still intact, among other reasons because I have always known how to take care of myself, without drinking, without smoking”.
That good state of health has allowed him, once the pandemic has been overcome, “to hold eight galas in the Canary Islands and all of them with great public success, filling the Ifecar in Las Palmas, with more public than the one Miguel Ríos had or at the parties of Arucas, with almost four thousand people. As long as the body and the voice respond to me, I will continue on stage so as not to disappoint that wonderful audience that loves me so much and has given me so much. I have once again been able to enjoy the adrenaline rush of singing in public, because more than recording albums or doing television, what I am most passionate about is singing live”. For now, he will continue to tour the Canary Islands, hoping that “the world will be a little calmer, because the war in Ukraine has affected us a lot, like the volcano of La Palma, which has made me live in anguish for a long time with a impressive anguish, like all canaries, with a heavy heart. Many unpleasant things have happened and I hope that so much misfortune goes away and we can go back to listening to songs, having fun, that is ultimately what life is about.
The Sabandeños
To close the festivities in honor of the Patron Saint of the Canary Islands, today, at 9:30 p.m., the square of the same name will receive the almost traditional visit of Los Sabandeños, the most international folk group in the Canary Islands. It will be the cultural and musical closure of festivals that have resumed their splendor three years after they were restricted by the arrival of COVID-19. The religious acts will culminate tomorrow with different masses in the Basilica, with the departure again in procession through the Plaza de la imagen de Candelaria after the midday Eucharist, in the so-called eighth of the Assumption of Mary, as long as the wind does not be present in the square.
