Last updated: 8 September 2026
By Stiv · Design, technology and personal finance
This is an opinion piece. Views expressed are the author's own and do not constitute professional advice.
This article contains affiliate or referral links. If you click one and sign up, I may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. It does not affect my editorial view. I bought my own ticket to this show.
Cool Factor: 5/5
Ninety minutes in a fake wellness clinic, and nobody sat down
This CA7RIEL and Paco Amoroso review comes from the upper balcony of O2 Academy Brixton on Wednesday 2 September 2026. It was the London date of the FREE SPIRITS World Tour, and one of only two the Argentine duo played in the UK. I went with my friend Lulo. She is Argentinian and understood every word. I understood roughly none of them, except the bits in English, and we both had a brilliant night.
The set from the balcony. Four fringed platforms in a cross, the band split either side, two treatment chairs waiting upstage right.
Section 01 / The setup
Who CA7RIEL and Paco Amoroso are
Two men from Buenos Aires who met at six years old and then spent two years becoming unavoidable.
CA7RIEL is Catriel Guerreiro. Paco Amoroso is Ulises Guerriero. They met as children and, subsequently, started making music together in 2010. Then, in October 2024, they played a Tiny Desk concert for NPR that changed the shape of their career. NPR's Anamaria Artemisa Sayre wrote that they had "whipped their typical beats into stirring drum taps and horn harmonies". That is more or less what the internet fell for.
Afterwards came the PAPOTA EP in March 2025 and five Latin Grammys at the 26th awards. Live Nation counts their 2025 at more than 60 dates across four continents. That run took in Coachella, Lollapalooza, Glastonbury, Roskilde and Fuji Rock. They also opened for Kendrick Lamar in Latin America. Meanwhile the album this tour carries, FREE SPIRITS, arrived on 19 March 2026.
Above all, the joke matters as much as the music. Sting announced the album in a video, playing the head of a fictional wellness centre called Free Spirits. In it he mentors the pair through a breakdown. That conceit is not marketing you leave at the door. In fact it is the entire show.
Section 02 / The room
Brixton as a room
The marquee at twenty five to eight, an hour before anything happened.
O2 Academy Brixton opened on 19 August 1929 as the Astoria, and it is Grade II listed. Its own history page points to the 140ft dome, the sloping floors, and a stage design based on the Rialto bridge in Venice. The venue calls that Europe's largest fixed stage. Consequently this is one of the few rooms of its size in London where the back is not a punishment.
Its recent history is worth stating plainly. The venue closed after a fatal crowd crush in December 2022 and lost its licence. It reopened on 19 April 2024 under 77 new licensing conditions. Those brought stronger doors, metal detectors and a managed queue. They also turned the upstairs balcony from first come, first served into reserved seating, which is why Lulo and I had seat numbers. Separately, Academy Music Group put over £1.2 million into the building, including a new house PA.
Section 03 / Getting in
The ticket I bought on DICE, and where it actually turned up
I paid £35 each through DICE, which is fair for a room this size in 2026. Getting hold of the tickets, however, was daft.
DICE held them back until the day of the show, which is normal enough. Then, on the day, DICE told me to download the O2 venue app instead. So I downloaded it and signed up. Inside that app there was no mention of DICE anywhere. Instead it pointed at Ticketmaster. I had to dig out a Ticketmaster login I had not used in a while, and the tickets were sitting in there.
In short, three apps and one password reset to collect a ticket I had already bought. DICE should simply have delivered them in its own app. Even so, the last step was genuinely good. The tickets dropped into Apple Wallet and we tapped in on NFC at the door. I had not done that at a gig before and it took about a second each.
Section 04 / The first half hour
A late start, and a crowd that never sat down
The front platform, with the treatment chairs parked upstage.
Doors were at seven. They came on later than I expected, which is the one thing about the night that mildly annoyed me. Then they opened on "No me sirve más" and the room went up immediately.
We had seats in the upper balcony and used them for roughly no time at all. Everybody around us was on their feet from the first song. Later we moved down to get closer. We ended up standing at the balcony rail, which is where most of my photographs come from.
What surprised me early on was how much of it came back at them. This is a new record. Even so, the words to FREE SPIRITS were clearly already learned. "Nada nuevo", "Ay ay ay" and "Muero" followed. By the time the older songs started appearing, the singing was loud enough to hear over the band.
Section 05 / The conceit
Sting is running the clinic, and the whole room is in on it
One of several full colour changes across the ninety minutes.
Essentially, the set is a wellness clinic done in beige towelling. Four fringed platforms sit in a cross. Two treatment chairs and a drip stand wait upstage right, and attendants in beige gowns drift about looking concerned. Sting, meanwhile, is the voice of the place. His voiceover runs through the show as their wellbeing coach and therapist, checking in on the patients between songs.
That is a bold thing to build a show around, because it only works if the audience plays along. Happily, Brixton played along completely. Everyone was in on the detox and the bit never dropped. The two of them kept feeding it rather than resetting to a normal gig between numbers. Getting Sting to voice the whole conceit is, frankly, real swagger.
Battle ropes came out at one point, down on the floor in front of the stage. That is exactly the sort of thing a wellness programme would make you do.
We poke fun at the industry that we too are a part of.Paco Amoroso, to the Recording Academy
Section 06 / The middle
The Tiny Desk songs, and the guitar nobody warned me about
Shot into three backlights through the haze, at about ten to ten.
Halfway through, the set turns towards the songs that made them. Every single track from that NPR session landed between positions 13 and 20 of the setlist for the night: "Dumbai", "Baby Gangsta", "Mi deseo / Bad Bitch", "El único" and "La que puede, puede". Predictably, that stretch drew the loudest singing of the evening.
Two things stood out to me here. Firstly, CA7RIEL is a seriously good guitarist. I did not know that, I was not expecting it, and he took several very good solos. Secondly, the range is not a gimmick. In one night the music went from rap to something close to reggae, then through more traditional Argentinian sounds, into heavier rock, and finally into straight dance music. Crucially, they were consistently great at all of it.
Section 07 / The last half hour
"It is going to get intense"
Twenty to eleven, and the clinic has become a rave.
Late on, Sting's voice came back over the PA. It warned the patients that things were about to get intense. Shortly afterwards the lasers came out and the whole room turned into a rave.
The closing run leans hard on dance music. "Ha Ha" and "Lo quiero ya!" arrive, then a mashup that drops the "Axel F" riff into the middle of it. Finally comes "Beto's Horns", their track with Fred again... The balcony was bouncing. By then I had entirely given up on the idea that I had a seat.
Then they closed on that and did not come back for an encore.
Section 08 / The honest bit
What did not work
Three things, in fact, and only one of them is really theirs.
Firstly, the late start. The venue has a hard eleven o'clock finish and doors at seven, so coming on late eats the night rather than building anticipation. Secondly, no encore. I go back and forth on that one. Encores are arguably old hat and a bit lame, and once these two were on they were on fully for ninety minutes. Even so, ending on the biggest moment and simply leaving denies the room a final breath.
Thirdly, the ticket delivery. That is not their fault at all, yet it is still part of the experience of going, and three apps to collect one ticket is not a good evening out.
Beyond that I am struggling. The costume changes were minimal, though there were a few. Given how theatrical everything else was, I would happily have taken more. That is a small ask of a show that otherwise gave me everything.
Section 09 / Context
Why this duo matters right now
Battle ropes on the floor, with an attendant supervising from the platform.
Plenty of acts go viral. Very few then build a theatrical arena show out of the joke about going viral. CA7RIEL told the Recording Academy that "the fame of Tiny Desk has taken us to very strange places doing very odd things". This tour is what that looks like when it is done on purpose.
There is a language point worth making too, and it should be made honestly. Plenty of the night was in English. Sting's voiceover was in English. So were parts of the newer songs, several hooks in the older ones, and most of what the two of them said to the crowd between numbers. Beyond that I understand almost no Spanish, and it did not matter for a second, because the musicality and the sheer fun of it carry the whole thing. Lulo, who understood every word, enjoyed it more than I did, which seems fair enough. Nevertheless neither of us was ever standing outside the show.
For a UK audience the practical fact is scarcity. This tour played only two British dates, Manchester on 31 August and Brixton on 2 September. Both went.
Section 10 / Money
Value for money
£35 a head for ninety minutes of this was, in my opinion, a bargain. Every price in this CA7RIEL and Paco Amoroso review is what I actually paid, at face value, on the day. Live music in London can be brutally expensive, and I have certainly paid more for a great deal less thought.
Would I go again? Yes, and I would go up to about £60 each. That is roughly where my own line sits for a room this size. In practice the seats were the best £35 I have spent on a gig this year, even though we barely used them. After all, they gave us the whole set design rather than the back of somebody's head.
By the day of the show, every UK seller I could find had it as unavailable. Gigantic was running a waiting list. Consequently, if they announce UK dates again, buy early rather than cleverly.
Section 11 / Practical
Practical notes for O2 Academy Brixton
Doors were at seven and the venue listed an eleven o'clock finish, so plan your last train accordingly. Brixton is on the Victoria line and the station is a two minute walk. For reference, age limits for this show were 14 and over standing, 8 and over seated.
On sound, it was very good where I was, and clear rather than merely loud. I wear Loop earplugs at gigs now, because I would like to keep my hearing, and they took the edge off without flattening anything. My Apple Watch never triggered its loud environment warning. In fairness it had been stuck in sleep mode for about a week, and nobody in that room was sleeping.
Finally, take the balcony seriously as an option. The sloping floor downstairs beats most rooms. From up there, though, you can actually see the staging, which on this tour is half the point.
Section 12 / Verdict
The verdict
Cool Factor
★★★★★
5 out of 5
Overall, this CA7RIEL and Paco Amoroso review lands on a 5 out of 5, Ice cold, and it was not a close call. They took a joke about burnout and handed the narration to Sting. They dressed the stage as a clinic in beige towelling. Then they played rap, reggae, Argentinian folk forms, rock and hard dance music without once dropping below excellent. Above all, they looked like two people having the time of their lives, and a room of nearly five thousand went with them.
It loses nothing for the late start or the missing encore. What happened in between was relentless, and I suspect the encore was skipped on purpose rather than forgotten. If you get the chance to see this show, take it. If you can get a seat you will not sit in, take that too.
CA7RIEL and Paco Amoroso review: your questions
Is a CA7RIEL and Paco Amoroso gig worth it?
In my experience, yes. This was a full theatrical production rather than two people and a backing track. There was a live band, a built set, a running narrative voiced by Sting and a genuine rave at the end. I paid £35 and would pay up to £60.
What did CA7RIEL and Paco Amoroso play at Brixton?
Twenty five songs, opening with "No me sirve más" and closing on "Beto's Horns". The FREE SPIRITS material dominated the first half. All five Tiny Desk songs arrived between positions 13 and 20, and the last stretch turned into dance music. The full running order is on setlist.fm.
How long was the show?
Roughly an hour and a half of music, which broadly matches the average show length recorded for this tour. They started later than I expected, and there was no encore.
Do you need to speak Spanish to enjoy it?
No, and more of it is in English than you might expect. Sting's voiceover is in English, so are parts of the newer songs and several hooks in the older ones, and they addressed the crowd in English between songs. Honestly, I understand almost no Spanish and still had a brilliant night. My friend Lulo is Argentinian and got more out of it than I did, so there is clearly another layer available if you have the language.
What is O2 Academy Brixton like now?
It reopened in April 2024 under 77 new licensing conditions after the 2022 crowd crush. Those brought stronger doors, metal detectors, a managed queue and reserved seating upstairs. In practice it felt orderly getting in and out on the night, and the sound was very good.
Is this CA7RIEL and Paco Amoroso review sponsored?
No. I bought both tickets myself at face value, and nobody from the tour, the venue or any ticket seller had any involvement. Some links on this page may earn a commission, which never changes the score.
Where else can I read a CoolCuration review like this one?
This is our first live music review. The closest thing to it is our Pride at the National Theatre review, which is another five out of five.
More things worth a click
- V&A LGBTQ tour review: another five out of five night out, this one free and led by volunteers.
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- To Pimp a Butterfly on vinyl: for anyone following the Kendrick Lamar thread backwards.
- Railcard discount code: worth having before you book trains for the next tour announcement.
- Uber referral code: for the bit of the evening after the lasers stop.
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