Balada Para Un Loco - Brancaleone

In a recent blog, I marveled that Lionius Treikauskas could listen to Piazzolla and Gerry Mulligan perform Twenty Years After and hear the potential for a chamber orchestra piece.  It is no less marvelous that someone in the Argentine rock band, Brancaleone, could listen to Piazzolla and Amelita Baltar perform Balada para un loco and hear a rock anthem. But as today's featured video demonstrates, that is exactly what they did.

Brancaleone is not to be confused with the Italian band of the same name (although I suspect they share the same drummer).  Brancaleone is a long established Buenos Aires rock band in the style of some of the great heavy metal bands from the 70's (think Black Sabbath).  They are fronted by vocalist, Martín Dufou, who is probably the man who inspired the band to undertake Balada para un loco.  I have long maintained that only singers who are good actors should put themselves in the position of singing the Balada loco and Dufou seems to fulfill that requirement.  He is an emotive and energetic singer who never seems to give anything less than everything as he belts out a tune.  He has been belting out Balada para un loco with Brancaleone at least since 2007 and they even have an acoustic version for what passes as quiet moments in the rock sphere. While I don't find it on the track lists of any of their four albums, there is a polished, studio version which you can hear here.

For musical quality and as an example of how Piazzolla's music easily crosses musical boundaries, that studio version is the best. But, the live version from a performance this week at Fiesta Clandestina has an energy that is missing in all the other versions.  That two bar repeating riff at the end of the song is true rock anthem stuff. Makes me want to stand on my chair and wave a lighted BIC over my head.



To learn more about Piazzolla videos, visit the Piazzolla Video site.

Follow Piazzolla on Video on Twitter.