With the venue filled to capacity, the Isla Bonita Love Festival brought the curtain down on its tenth edition at the Port of Tazacorte on Saturday night. The mass event, headlined by Laura Pausini and Nathy Peluso, also coincided with the fifth anniversary of the start of the Tajogaite eruption, an inevitable reference on a night held very close to the landscape left by the volcano.
There was no need to stress it too much: in the background, behind the stage, the lava flows recalled the mark left in 2021, and on stage both artists included messages of affection and strength for the people of La Palma in their performances.
From the very first minute, Laura Pausini won over the La Palma audience. She opened her show to the chords of Yo canto, flanked by three huge inclusive flags – the rainbow flag expanded with the trans colours and racial representation – on either side.
Her show unfolded inside a fortress of screens which, as she herself explained, symbolised the house of music. The concert was dedicated to her albums Yo canto and Yo canto 2, with which she revisited great songs that marked a before and after in music, reinterpreted with her vocal power and sensitivity.
Her repertoire, which much of the audience has made part of their own life story, rang out in Tazacorte with songs such as Se fue, Víveme and En cambio no, alongside covers of Latin American hits such as Mecano’s Hijo de la Luna, Ricky Martin’s Livin’ la vida loca and Celia Cruz’s La vida es un carnaval.
Meanwhile, dozens of costume changes, with wigs, coats and all kinds of accessories, made for a dazzling show, both visually and vocally.
She also spoke, and a lot. She talked about the festival and how much she loves celebrating the word love, and how she has always thought it is one of the few things that should need no explanation: “who you decide to be or who you decide to love”. “We are alike, and our differences should not divide us,” she said. On a night like this, she confessed, she wanted music to do what it does best: erase any distance for a few hours and remind anyone who has ever felt alone or different that there is always a place in the world where they can be themselves.
The anniversary of the volcano was present again before Emergencia de amor, one of the last songs of the set. Pausini explained that performing that song in Tazacorte, just as five years had passed since the start of the eruption, was deeply meaningful because it symbolised hope.
Conceived as the night’s after-show, the late-night pulse of Nathy Peluso’s Club Grasa changed the pace with a bold set in which the Argentine artist took the port to another place. Behind her in the booth was the Pakistani-American DJ and trans activist Armana Khan, a perfect fit for the audience and for the DNA of a festival that has championed love and diversity for a decade now.
A week after Isabel Pantoja filled the same port at the only Spanish stop of her 50-year career tour, the festival once again showed thousands of people how very different styles can share the same stage, always in tune with the values that gave rise to it.
