Today that they tell us ---contradicting what they told us yesterday--- that party halls will not be able to open, let me remember something that happened B.C. (before Covid). It must have been eight in the morning (the detail is important) I was still lounging in bed (the detail is not important) and on the alarm clock radio, tuned to a generalist magazine, "Black Star" was playing. I knew it instantly. The labels were "Eight in the morning", "generalist magazine", "Black Star". David Bowie had died.
Immediately, very sad calls to friends. And among them, DJ Buenavista, from the Razzmatazz concert hall. Suddenly the song "Black Star" made so much sense (it was an epitaph), that we had to do something to console ourselves. We decided to pay him tribute, there at Razzmatazz. We called musicians. Many. Everyone was sad. It was about choosing a Bowie song and covering it. Everyone said "yes". And I expected there would be fights over "Starman" or "Five Years", but no. Everyone chose theirs, without repeating.
[subscribe_newsletter_esp]We painted the lightning bolt from the "Aladdin Sane" cover on our faces, the small room filled with fans, and "Sleep Away" or "The Secret Life of Arabia" played and in the end, all together ---my skin is crawling right now, writing this--- they sang "Heroes". Radio 3 broadcast it. The money went to a cancer foundation. Nobody charged anything. At the entrance to Razzmatazz there was a text that said: "The stars look very different today", in reference to his most famous song, "Space Oddity", that of Major Tom. The following year we repeated it. Núria Graham, Coti, Micky Puig, Àlex Torío, Arbre, Èric Vinaixa, Gerard Quintana, Nacho Campillo (from Tam-Tam Go), Tori Sparks, Marion Harper... did covers.
If I remember it, it's because those who have "nightlife" venues, as we call them now, do and have done beautiful things for us, such as hiring artists. We tend to call them "entrepreneurs", with a pejorative sense. Of course, "dancing close" is dangerous, of course, dancing jumping around is also, but no more than doing a Zumba class. Gyms are open, cocktail bars too. Discotheques could open with the same system: that of asking for a turn. I know there are places where what is danced is ballroom dancing (held), but precisely, those who dance ballroom dancing are usually "bubble groups": dance partners are much more stable than bed partners.
I miss that kind of mollusk called "the bar slug," and I already know that the bar slug, after a couple of drinks, would also start drinking the hydroalcoholic gel. I miss the song they play at the end of the night ---always the same--- to indicate that (I love the verb form that follows) "it's time to start leaving." I miss seeing how the waiters, when they clean up, wipe the bar with that specific brand of gin (do the manufacturers know this?). I miss seeing newly formed couples, newly broken couples. I miss leaving the club, at dawn, and going, of course, to the churrería on Carrer de Còrsega, not far from Bar Mut, to eat a churrifrankfurt. I swear it exists. And, as you must have guessed, it's a churro filled with frankfurter, which, by the way, has existed long before the New York cronut: half croissant and half donut. Anyway, at this point, I suppose it's better if I leave it here.