The Cluny has seen enough live music over the years to know when a night is going to follow a familiar pattern. Thursday 4 June wasn’t one of those nights.

Msb Mario was due earlier, but the stage remained empty for close to two hours past the scheduled time. No updates, no real announcement from the venue, just that slow shift in the room where people stop checking the time as much and start watching the stage. When he finally appeared, most people seemed to have stopped worrying about the delay.

The setup was stripped right back. A worn acoustic guitar on one side, a stool, and on the other, a small table holding a laptop and electronic pad. It’s simple on paper, but it didn’t feel that way once things got going.

There were moments when the room barely felt like Newcastle at all. With much of the audience seated upstairs around tables and chairs, it drifted towards something closer to a Spanish square than a typical UK venue. Quiet, focused, with little in the way of distraction. People stayed locked in from early on.

El Niño de la Pili opened with “Karmen” and material from his online sessions, where the Spanish rhythmic feel comes across more like instinct than influence. It landed straight away.

From there, he didn’t stand still. “Estankera de Vallekas” and “Robbow” pushed things into sharper territory, less polished maybe, but with clear intent behind it.

“Con ella” was one of the first real lifts. Built on a strong Spanish rhythmic base, it eased the room and shifted the mood for a moment.

“Dorme Bu” followed with a noticeable change in his voice. Deeper, rougher and almost strained at points, it gave the track a heavier emotional pull that lingered longer than expected.

After that things became more fragmented. “No es por ti”, “Amae”, “Dancing Lacrimoia” and “Lontanopordentro” came and went without settling too much. The guitar work stood out most. Not played in a traditional way, but struck and tapped across the body of the instrument, almost treated like a cajón, leaving some people looking slightly puzzled and others completely hooked by it.

Then “Chela Chele” hit and everything shifted again.
Mario rebuilt it live on the electronic pad. The reaction was instant. One of the more surprising moments of the night was hearing a Newcastle crowd sing it back with a rhythm and phrasing that felt distinctly Spanish. Nobody seemed to decide it was going to happen. It just did. The room moved together, instinctively.

The reggaeton section brought the biggest physical response of the evening. “Shakalakalaka” got the room moving, while “Xapala”, introduced as unreleased, felt looser again, more shared than performed.

“La Gitanikah de Can Puchere” pushed things somewhere else entirely. Built live with layered electronics, he brought in pre-recorded recordings of his mother’s voice (according to Mario’s team in the venue), triggering and weaving them through the track from the pad. At points it felt emotional and deeply personal, with a distinctly Spanish character running through it, sitting inside the electronics rather than above them.

When “Acuérdate” arrived, the energy in the room was still high, but Mario pulled it right down. Introduced as a dedication to fathers, it became one of his strongest vocal moments of the night, holding the room in a kind of silence that is rare in a live setting.

The closing version of “Suave” lifted the energy once again, turning the final moments of the show into a genuine display of vocal control, rhythmic instinct, and reggaeton influence. By that stage, the audience seemed fully immersed, responding to every shift in tempo and every change in mood.

What stood out most was the unpredictability and the ease with which Mario held the room alone, shifting between multiple roles with a calm, almost effortless control. Nothing felt forced, nothing overstated, just a steady command of the space from start to finish.

By the end, what remained was not spectacle in the traditional sense, but the feeling of an artist constantly redrawing the shape of the performance as it unfolds. The appeal of the show lies in never fully knowing where it is heading at any given moment, and that is perhaps the most compelling part of this enigmatic artist who never stops surprising.

Upcoming dates include Brighton later this month, with further UK shows lined up as El Niño de la Pili continues to build momentum across the circuit.

Tickets: https://www.seetickets.com/event/msb-mario-el-nino-de-la-pili-/the-folklore-rooms/3636189