The Spanish pop superstar Rosalía disappointed thousands of fans in Peru when the country was left off the 15-country list on her Motomami tour last year.
But one Peruvian, Ioanis Patsias decided to make sure his fellow fans did not miss out on her pop spectacle and put on a tribute show, playing the avant-garde pop queen himself.
The result was sellout performance on Friday as more 3,500 followers went to see the YouTuber and eight dancers meticulously recreate Rosalía’s show down to the costume changes, the dance numbers, the lighting and stage design and even the scooters, at an amphitheatre in Lima’s Parque de la Exposición.
“We sold out! Many of my followers came to the show to see me and went away loving Rosalía,” said Patsias, known as iOA on YouTube where he has also made tributes to J Balvin, Nicki Minaj and Billie Eilish.
On stage, iOA and his “motopapis” lip-synced and performed the Spanish singer’s setlist which included Con Altura, Motomami and La Combi Versace. Clips of the tribute performance have gone viral on social media.
It was the fruit of months of preparation and a small fortune spent on auditioning dancers, choreography, costume rehearsals and content creation, said Patsias, who saw Rosalía perform at Radio City Hall in New York in September.
“I just wanted to bring the Motomami experience to Peru. My [social media] fans made this possible, they were complicit with me in making this happen from the beginning,” Patsias told the Guardian.
“The idea was never to make money, the idea was to do the tribute as best as possible,” said Patsias, 34, who recouped through ticket sales only part of the more than $100,000 that he spent staging the show.
“I did a casting of more than 100 dancers to get to the eight who performed. They all had to make transformations, one even covered his body with tattoos,” he said.
“I want her fans to realise that I love her just as much as they do,” added Patsias who has more than 1 million followers on TikTok.
“I would love to meet her. I’d love to tell her the process I went through to learn to dance in high heels. It’s not been easy for an economist,” he joked.
Patsias and his dancers celebrated when the official TikTok account linked to the Grammy award-winning Catalan artist commented on the Lima show saying in Spanish: “Parallel dimension unblocked”.
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