Pop : Perales: Soap King

It was like a telenovela --a Latin American soap opera--come to life on Saturday at the Universal Amphitheatre as Jose Luis Perales, the veteran romantic composer and vocalist from Spain, accepted a rose stem from a young fan and delicately laid it down on the grand piano.

The near-capacity crowd was there to be transported to a romantic fantasy land for the evening. Perales’ tunes are populated by images of tearful goodbys, gray afternoons, trembling lips and hands. Add a kind of Spanish baroque musical sensibility (intricate, formal arrangements) and one has the combination that’s kept him on top of the pop world for more than 20 years.

Perales has composed for most of the giants of Spanish pop, including Isabel Pantoja, Miguel Bose and Rafael. He proved to be a charismatic and gracious presence on stage himself. Still, metaphors like “our empty bed like a vast white beach” wore thin after a while. Missing from Perales’ telenovela is the anger and frustration of loves gone bad. And after an hour and a half of a ‘70s-style “Gentle on My Mind” sound, one yearned for a little flamenco or tropical heat.

Perales gave us neither. At his best, he can be a spellbinding poet of love; at his worst, he’s as tiring as a badly done soap opera.