Roughly a month after Marín's passing, Il Divo announced that their tour, For Once In My Life: A Celebration of Motown, that was supposed to start in February, would be changed to, Il Divo's Greatest Hits: In Memory of Carlos Marín. The group found a Mexican-American baritone, Steven LaBrie, to join them and sing Marín's parts. This happened for the whole concert except the song Hallelujah which they sat on stools for and left one stool empty with a spotlight on it, where Marín would have sat. His voice played as a recording over the speakers and the rest of the Il Divo members sang along with him.
As one can imagine, it must not have been easy for the remaining Il Divo members to continue on without their friend and partner, as well as having someone "replace" him. Urs Bühler mentioned in an interview recently, that choosing to continue without Marín was a given, that he would have wanted the show to go on, but he also continued to say that he and the other members, David Miller and Sébastien Izambard cried themselves to sleep before the first concert. Bühler said that it was the encouragement of the fans that convinced them to continue and that it was the right move for them, and that they feel Marín's presence in each and every show. When asked how he remembers Marín, Bühler said, "Carlos had an exceptional voice. But he was a very complicated person to work with, he had a lot of personality, he was very black and white. We have learned to know each other very well in these 18 years, so we knew very well how to manage each other and how to manage the group." He was asked to clarify on what he meant about complicated, and he replied, "Because for Carlos there was a yes or a no, and nothing in between. Sometimes we have told him, there are four of us in the group, it is a democracy. Okay, but if the three of us agreed and Carlos didn't, it wasn't done because, what are you going to do if the other doesn't come? When Carlos wanted something, he had a force to move mountains and if you had him on your side, if the energies united, we could get what we wanted, impressive. But if this unit was not there, forget it, there was no way."
Il Divo will be touring for the next coming months, bringing Marín's spirit abroad and sharing his memory and music with fans all over the world.
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The Unofficial Biography of Carlos Marín
Non-FictionThe late Carlos Marín deserves his story to be told; his true story. Carlos Marín, one-quarter of the worldwide sensation, Il Divo was born in Rüsselsheim, Germany on October 13th, 1968. He suddenly passed on December 19th, 2021 after a short battle...
