The Catalan beer brand has allied with the Association of Concert Halls of Catalonia (ASACC) to launch Directes Estrella Damm150, a series of concerts featuring eighteen performances in eighteen venues in the Catalan capital and its metropolitan area.
This initiative aims to give visibility to the circuit of small and medium-sized venues, which is often where the most exciting and intimate concerts take place. It is precisely in these more intimate settings where groups improvise, try out new songs, and have that special first "one-on-one" with the audience before making the leap to big festivals.
Pop, underground music, urban, and flamenco
The Directes Estrella Damm 150 began last Thursday, October 1, at the Sala Heliògabal with a concert by GRISO, the new solo project by Eric Griso (former member of the duo Arnau Griso). The Barcelona singer-songwriter presented LUNÁTICO, his debut album.
For the rest of the month, the scheduled concerts feature a wide variety of genres ranging from post-punk and rumba to club culture. On Friday, October 16, Sala Plataforma will host the pop-rock of Diamante Negro, who will present the songs from La Náusea, their second LP. On the same day, La Paloma will be the stage where El Pony Pisador will offer one of the few opportunities of the year to enjoy their live performance.
The weekend of October 17 and 18 will close with a triple proposal led by Carmen y María at Sidecar; the duo will present GROOVE Y SONIQUETE, their debut work that moves between flamenco, neo-soul, rap, and funk. We will also be able to enjoy the Barcelona duo Svetlana at Sala Salamandra (L'Hospitalet) who, after a tour of more than fifty dates with their album MARRANA, will bring their mix of electronics, eurodance, and rumba full of humor and social criticism to L'Hospitalet. Sunday's event will feature improvisation and the fusion of flamenco rhythms with jazz and movement by Flaymencos at Cafè Belgrado (Sant Cugat).
The rock of Barcelona's Mourn will arrive at Sala Vol on Thursday 22 to present Letra Ligada, an album sung in Spanish, more cheerful and more pop than their previous works. The next day, Friday 23, singer-songwriter Carlota Flâneur will bring her creative universe to New Fizz with the album What My Body Wants, while El Siglo (Sant Cugat) will stand up with the eleven members of Hip Horns Brass Collective and their fusion of New Orleans jazz, funk and hip-hop collected on the album KREWE.
Saturday night, the 24th, will host two of the most crowded concerts. On one hand, Maruja Limón will perform at Sala Times (Santa Coloma); the female sextet will present Te como la cara, a journey through the different variants of rumba (Catalan, flamenco, quinqui and Latin) mixed with electronic sounds. On the other hand, Miki Núñez will be at Razzmatazz to present his work La partida, as part of a tour that has already taken him to more than thirty stages across the territory.
Thursday, October 29, will be the turn of the Vecinos concert at Sala Wolf; the band born in the portals of Barcelona will present Centro de Ayuda, a compendium of punk, pop and garage that talks about precariousness and routine with a touch of irony.
But the grand finale of the Directes Estrella Damm 150 will be on October 30 by one of the most well-known Catalan bands of electronic indie-pop: Dorian. The group will present their latest album, Futuros imposibles, in a concert specially designed for the occasion.
A cycle to reclaim local venues
The cycle is part of an even broader project that extends between September 18 and October 30 throughout the Catalan territory, the Balearic Islands, and Castelló. In total, the proposal includes almost 45 concerts by nearly 45 different artists.
This joint effort by Estrella Damm and ASACC champions venues as local cultural facilities. Spaces like Heliògabal, Jamboree, or Sidecar act as experimentation laboratories where roots music, underground music, and new trends find the necessary space to develop. Without these venues, many musical projects would never have seen the light of day.