As the night falls on the Ancient Theatre of Fourvière in Lyon, three suns rise in the bleachers. Three flags of the Eastern Republic of Uruguay were waved by happy spectators to greet national idol Jorge Drexler at the end of the concert he had just given during the Nuits de Fourvière. He rarely plays in France, his last performance dating back to 2009, and he will be at the Rio Loco Festival in Toulouse on June 16.
Don't think that the 2,000 festival-goers gathered on June 14 were all Uruguayans, however. In the stands, we spotted several Mexicans, a Venezuelan, a Colombian, Chileans, many Spaniards and even a Guatemalan, singing along to the 15 or so songs the singer and guitarist performed. The musicians of the Portuguese artist Ana Moura, who played after him that evening, snuck into the first rows. All of them sighed in admiration at the skill of Mr. Drexler and his six bandmates in mixing milonga, flamenco and tropicália.
"When the pandemic started, I bought a stethoscope and an oximeter. It was the first time in 25 years that I considered becoming a doctor again." Jorge Drexler
"Jorge is very popular in almost all Latin countries," said Michelle, a Mexican woman who moved to Lyon for her studies. "We were especially moved by one of the songs he played tonight. As he said so well, we are neither completely from here nor completely from there." Fluctuating, floating and elusive identities are the main themes of this 57-year-old Uruguayan over the course of the 15 or so albums he has released since his debut in 1992. In 2005, Prince awarded him an Oscar for "Al Otro Lado del Rio" ("Across the River"), his most famous song, used in the soundtrack of Brazilian director Walter Salles' Che Guevara biopic, The Motorcycle Diaries. Another is "Un Pais con un Nombre de Rio" – literally, "A Country Named After a River." This is how Uruguay and its 3.5 million nationals (of whom nearly 500,000 live abroad) wind their way through the country. "The Uruguayan identity is subtle," Mr. Drexler told us by videoconference a few days before his concert in Lyon. "It is the second smallest country in Latin America, wedged between the two largest, Argentina and Brazil. Our borders with these two nations are essentially open and delineated by rivers. This is not a negligible fact."
'Lack of grandiosity'
It's quite the experience seeing Mr. Drexler swaying on stage, swinging his loose khaki clothes, white sneakers and salt-and-pepper hair in synchrony with his music's vibrations. His voice must be seen flowing as much as must be heard. "We have a lack of grandiosity," continued Mr. Drexler. "Unlike the rest of the American continent, we are not very religious. More than a third of Uruguayans are atheists. This impacts our sense of humor, melancholy and education. Church and schools were separated in 1876. We are fascinated by reason; it is our French side." He contests the idea of an anthropomorphic God, whom he sees as the source of the planet's mistreatment: "Religions puts humans at the center of the species and the universe. But we are not at the center of anything."
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