Argentine Rockers Soda Stereo Transform Arena Concerts With A Touring Digital Frontman

The surviving members of Soda Stereo execute unrecorded during their 2026 ECOS circuit alongside a integer avatar of precocious vocalist Gustavo Cerati (left).

Agustín Dusserre

Stepping into a modern performance venue feels progressively for illustration entering an immersive media spectacle, 1 that’s powered by everything from spatial audio to virtual accumulation and next-generation ocular design. But if the boundary-pushing caller circuit from the Argentine stone set Soda Stereo is immoderate indication, an moreover bigger translator is accelerated approaching for the multibillion-dollar unrecorded performance industry.

Widely regarded arsenic the Beatles of Latin America, Soda Stereo is successful the midst of a world circuit built astir a futuristic-sounding formula: Live musicians playing successful existent clip alongside a integer frontman. Those musicians are the band’s bassist Zeta Bosio and drummer Charly Alberti, performing onstage pinch a lifelike avatar of vocalist Gustavo Cerati, who died successful 2014.

The early of unrecorded euphony technology

What makes the ECOS acquisition unique: Whereas earlier avatar concerts and shows for illustration London’s ABBA Voyage person been hologram projection-based and tied to fixed, purpose-built environments, Soda Stereo’s circuit isn’t confined to a azygous stage. Nor are the shows, strictly speaking, built astir a hologram aliases projection.

Rather, the band’s high-tech rendering of Cerati creates the convincing illusion of a three-dimensional performer really sharing the beingness shape abstraction pinch his surviving bandmates. An moreover bigger technological leap is that the setup is afloat modular, allowing Cerati’s avatar to travel, move, and interact pinch crowds successful dozens of world venues.

"To the champion of our knowledge, nary accumulation has ever toured pinch a integer personnel performing unrecorded alongside existent musicians successful this way," Nicolás Bernaudo, the imaginative head of ECOS, told maine astir the circuit that will span 14 countries and almost 2 twelve cities by the clip it wraps. "Finding a measurement to make that imaginable was 1 of our top imaginative challenges, because there’s nary established roadmap for a show for illustration this.

“We've had to create our ain methods and protocols from scratch."

That included bypassing AI entirely, on pinch the usage of synthetic vocals and machine-learned movements. The production—named aft an early Soda Stereo song, the title of which is Spanish for “echoes”—instead relies connected hyperrealistic ocular renderings paired pinch archival audio, to bring to life 1 of the astir iconic figures successful Spanish rock.

What audiences see, bathed successful shape lighting, is simply a virtual Cerati materialize almost for illustration a specter that’s conscionable walked done a portal from the awesome beyond. Throughout each astir 2-hour show, Soda Stereo’s digitally resurrected vocalist nods, smiles, makes playful manus gestures, and strums his electrical guitar, starring fans successful arena-rattling singalongs of the band’s hits for illustration “Persiana Americana” and “Prófugos.”

‘We wanted them to feel…like they were watching Soda Stereo again’

So far, the circuit has sold much than 450,000 tickets, and the U.S. limb successful September will see stops successful San Jose, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Chicago, New York, and Miami.

"Our guidance was ne'er focused connected making the exertion the prima of the show," Bernaudo said. “The extremity was ne'er for group to time off thinking, 'What unthinkable technology.' We wanted them, moreover if only for a moment, to consciousness they were watching Soda Stereo again."

The band’s research is besides unfolding amid a broader exertion gyration reshaping the unrecorded euphony business, examples of which see the futuristic wonderland of the Las Vegas Sphere and Coldplay’s galore performance innovations for illustration kinetic creation floors and recyclable LED wristbands.

Concertgoers are besides progressively being greeted pinch things for illustration synchronized drone shows and object-based spatial audio that tin position instruments and vocals anyplace successful a venue.

This each comes arsenic gross from live euphony summons sales topped $40 cardinal globally for the first clip successful 2025 and will apt deed $50 cardinal by 2030, per Omdia marketplace data. Concert figures from Pollstar and Live Nation likewise corroborate that fans are consenting to walk big, truthful agelong arsenic an arena offers a spectacle beyond the modular performance experience.

The bequest down Soda Stereo's ECOS tour

All that said, ocular tricks unsocial don’t waste astir half a cardinal performance tickets. To understand why ECOS has been resonating pinch audiences, it’s adjuvant to grasp the agelong protector that Cerati and Soda Stereo formed crossed the Spanish-speaking world.

Formed successful Buenos Aires successful 1982, the trio didn't conscionable apical charts; they practically pioneered stadium stone successful Latin America, defining the sound of a procreation pinch anthems for illustration "De Música Ligera."

Soda Stereo besides developed a estimation for pushing the technological letter cover successful the band’s unrecorded shows—particularly during the band’s 1997 farewell circuit and its reunion circuit successful 2007. Both outings group caller benchmarks for concerts successful Latin America, anchored by blase video and ray shows.

Now, they’ve done it again, this clip pinch a integer avatar of their precocious bandmate—in a measurement that efficaciously redefines what a performance tin be.

“There’s a building a friend erstwhile told maine that I often repeat: 'If it doesn't move you, it doesn't work,'” Bernaudo said. “All of america understood we were creating thing that went beyond technology—it felt for illustration we were bringing a shared imagination to life."

“I don't deliberation [ECOS] is present to switch accepted concerts. I spot it arsenic opening a caller imaginative connection wrong unrecorded performance. Technology unsocial isn't enough—what really matters is really it's utilized successful work of a story, an creator vision, and supra each an affectional experience."