The disastrous return of Amaia Montero with Van Gogh’s Ear is a good x-ray of the dangers of paying for nostalgia
Thirty thousand people have filled the BEC in Barakaldo for two nights to witness one of the most anticipated returns of Spanish pop. Amaia Montero returned to Van Gogh’s Ear almost twenty years later of his departure, on a tour called ‘So many things to tell’ and that promised to close a cycle (or open a new one). But these first concerts (especially the first one) have ended up being talked about for very different reasons than expected. The Ear, the return. When La Oreja de Van Gogh officially announced on October 15, 2025 that Amaia Montero was returning to the band, the tickets were sold out. in a matter of hours in numerous cities, and new dates were added due to demand. The tour consists of 16 stops that extend until November 2026 and include the Movistar Arena in Madrid (three nights), the Palau Sant Jordi in Barcelona and the Illunbe Donostia Arena. It is, right now, one of the most relevant pop phenomena of the year in Spain. How it started. The trigger It was an appearance that no one expected. in July 2024, by Amaia Montero at the Santiago Bernabéu during one of Karol G’s concerts to perform ‘Rosas’, the anthem from Van Gogh’s La Oreja. The reaction was enormous and shortly afterLa Oreja de Van Gogh announced the departure of Leire Martínez, the group’s vocalist for 17 years, from the band, alleging “different ways of living the group.” In October 2025, Amaia’s return was officially announced. 2026 is the year of the 30th anniversary of La Oreja and the 25th of ‘El viaje de Copperpot’, one of their most remembered albums. What happened in Barakaldo. On May 9, 2026, the tour started at the BEC and 18,000 people attended the first concert. Amaia appeared center stage on a raised platform, wearing a bright pink jumpsuit. He said: “I went down to hell itself, but with my scars, after fighting a lot, here I am.” However, despite good intentions, the chronicles they agreed in which Amaia was “out of tune and too tight to reach the high notes.” It especially went viral their performance of ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’the Prince classic popularized by Sinéad O’Connor and with which the band originally discovered her, but deeply out of tune. Amaia herself acknowledged on stage: “I do it terribly”. The amazing thing is that, as has also been saidAmaia “has had more than a year to prepare vocally” and despite this she showed “many technical deficiencies.” The group could have adapted the tonalities to their current voice, but they have not done so so that the songs are identical to how fans remember, and that is the problem. Second round. On May 10, in the second concert at the same venue, the setlist went from 25 songs to 22. ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’, ‘We’re all dancing to the same song’ and ‘The girl who cries at your parties’, the three songs that had generated the most problems the night before, disappeared. The presence of songs from Leire Martínez’s era was also reduced. Amaia was more confident and the elevated platform was reserved for ‘Mariposa’. The reactions of the fans. The acrimony with which Amaia’s return has been received has to do with the fact that the audience of La Oreja de Van Cogh is divided into two communities. The fans who came with Amaia, thirty-somethings who grew up with ‘Rosas’, ‘La playa’ or ’20 de Enero’, experienced the concert as the return of a diva and the disagreements were excusable. The fans who joined with Leire, on the other hand, listened to someone sing with obvious effort songs that his protégé performed for almost two decades with great technical solvency. A good part of the band’s fans (or ex-fans, at this point) think that there is a voice that has now been displaced, without a satisfactory public explanation and with an exit that It was tense: Amaia did not agree to share the 30th anniversary concerts with Leire, and the group chose to do without her. This has irremediably fractured the public, who in the case of the fans of the expelled vocalist, spread Amaia’s failures on social networks with particular viciousness. The comeback syndrome. Not all nostalgic reunions are a triumph. There are those that burst resoundingly because they try to revive an energy that responded to unrepeatable circumstances, but what they achieve is to make very clear just the opposite: that that energy no longer exists. The Sex Pistols on their 1996 tour is one of the most memorable cases for its self-awareness, but the drama dates back before: The Animals, Simon & Garfunkel or The Byrds in previous decades also failed when trying to win back their audience. The list of bands that recently crashed a reunion (not necessarily commercially, mind you) is endless: Jane’s Addiction, Guns’n Roses… The reason is always that the search for money is evident above the relationships between its members, sometimes very deteriorated. In this case, despite the fact that the economies of the band members They are very healthyfrom the videos we sense a certain suspicion and discomfort between the musicians and vocalist. Because that’s another: whether they succeed lyrically and commercially or not, what they won’t be able to escape is the evil tongues. As Leire fans know very well. In Xataka | The internal drama that Andy and Lucas lived through for years: story of a breakup that we are seeing live
