The unexpected news of the death of rock icon Indio Solari took a whole country by surprise on Friday, leading to a nationwide mourning.

The information began to roam social networks at 9 a.m. and soon reached headlines at news portals, TV and radio. Fellow members of his solo band Los Fundamentalistas del Aire Acondicionado confirmed Solari’s demise off the record. 

At 12.30, his official IG account posted a communiqué about “the saddest news”. The statement mentioned an intimate farewell by his family, and promised to provide further information about a public memorial.

“Meanwhile, let’s cry, listen to his songs and take care of each other, like he taught us.”

Carlos Indio Solari was the frontman of highly popular band Patricio Rey y sus Redonditos de Ricota, which began playing in the mid-Seventies, recorded their first albums a decade later and reached enormous popularity in the Nineties. 

His solo career broke all attendance records, with an incredible show for 400,000 fans in 2017.

He was 77 years old and retired in 2023 due to advanced Parkinson’s disease but continued recording songs as El Mister y los Marsupiales.

The rise of popularity of Patricio Rey y sus Redonditos de Ricota exceeds the usual dynamics of a rock group. For starters, they were pioneers of independent production, working outside the handful of concert promoters in Argentina. 

The band began playing in their hometown of La Plata in the late Seventies, during the Argentine dictatorship, and by 1979 reached........

© Buenos Aires Herald