Fucking desire. The motto Santi Balmes wore on his t-shirt couldn't have been more forceful. The Love of Lesbian singer hadn't set foot on a stage for a year and a half, and his desire to delight and drive the Sant Jordi audience wild was evident and made itself felt in each of the seventeen songs that played this Saturday night at the first post-pandemic mass concert held in Europe. "Today we are making history. In the future, you will be able to say with a big smile: I was there!", exclaimed the Love of Lesbian frontman, before a devoted audience that did not stop dancing, jumping, singing, shouting, and getting emotional during the 120 minutes of the performance, organized by Festivals per la Cultura Segura.
The organization, which ran like clockwork, allowed attendees, divided into four groups that could not mix, to follow the concert from the stands. But no, 90% of the 5,000 attendees wanted to be on the floor, packed together, to be able to experience body-to-body again, to hug each other, to immortalize every moment and broadcast everything with their mobiles, to raise their arms together, to move legs that had almost forgotten how to dance, to hear how the girl behind you knows the song lyrics better than you, to relive, in short, situations that transport one to the past and that filled more than one person's eyes with tears.
A night without social distancing, but with a white FFP2 mask ---the same for everyone--- that no one took off at any time, scrupulously complying with all instructions given by the organization. Rules that did not allow drinking or eating anything on the floor, surely the most significant sacrifice made by most attendees, accustomed to enjoying concerts with a beer in hand. Dry law was imposed at the beginning of the concert, but before, once all access control filters had been passed, there was time to enjoy an Estrella Damm and even Jägermeister shots.
Are you really going to the Love of Lesbian concert? Do you mean it's safe? Aren't you scared? Many of us had been insistently asked these questions as the day approached, but yesterday, at Sant Jordi, there was no fear, quite the opposite. There was only a desire for fun and to once again enjoy one of the most successful Catalan musical groups, which will present its new album on April 16. And it is that before the concert, everyone had undergone a reassuring antigen test that only detected six positive cases of covid-19, which completely dispelled doubts about participating in this scientific and cultural experiment, the most important that has been carried out so far in Europe.
"Everyone is looking at us today. Something like this could only be done by a city like Barcelona," Santi Balmes proudly said before introducing one of the band's main hits. "Today, at Sant Jordi, we can indeed say it's Under the Volcano!" An explosion of emotion on the floor, people wildly jumping, dancing, and chanting the mythical song. And the concert took a tour through the most successful songs in Love of Lesbian's history... Balmes and his troupe gave no respite to the audience, who surrendered to each of the songs that followed: Cuando no me ves, Noches reversibles, Segundo asalto, Contraespionaje, Los males pasajeros, Belice, Manifiesto delirista... and also two titles very much in tune with the current context we are living: Nadie por las calles and Si Salimos de esta.
Balmes dedicated this song to healthcare personnel and supermarket workers and also showed his demanding side: "may we never again think of making cuts in health and scientific research." "This concert is a battle we have won within a war, but the war is not over yet, we cannot relax," added the singer, completely enthusiastic.
During the concert there were a couple of surprises, as two guest artists took the stage and performed a duet with Love of Lesbian: Chilean singer Ana Tijoux and Catalan singer-songwriter Suu. The total madness, however, came with John Boy, the song everyone was waiting for and which, like a great anthem, closed the concert, which was rounded off with three encores where Planeador could not be missed. "What we have experienced here today is amazing, an incredible experience; we need more doses like this of faith and hope in the future. Today we have made history and we want many more nights like this to be repeated," concluded an emotional Balmes. Spontaneously, and before emptying the Sant Jordi in a very orderly fashion, the audience sang a cappella Fantástico...
Thus ended a day that had begun early in the morning, when an army of 80 nurses began to administer antigen tests to the 5,000 concert attendees, in three mythical venues in Barcelona converted for a day into an outpatient clinic: Apolo, Razzmatazz and Luz de Gas. This entire process worked like a perfect gear, without queues, everyone cited at their time, and making very good use of technology, with QR codes and a mobile application that will surely serve as an example and model to follow not only for music festivals held in Catalonia, but throughout Europe.
With the success of this concert, Barcelona, once again, has shown its leadership and its capacity to conceive and execute complex projects. It is even more meritorious if one takes into account that this event promoted by the main promoters and festivals of Catalonia is not just a concert, it is not just leisure, it is also a clinical study by the Germans Trias i Pujol Hospital that has allowed for mass screening of 5,000 citizens and that will now allow for the drafting of protocols to enjoy culture with maximum safety and to reactivate activity in the nightlife sector, one of the most affected by the pandemic. The medical team leading the study will now monitor all concert attendees for the next 14 days to see if any cases of coronavirus infection are detected. If the incidence is zero, let's get ready to dance and sing again very soon. Now we will know how to organize a safe mass concert and, furthermore, it seems that vaccination will accelerate starting in April. Let's be optimistic, there's less left! Fucking eager. Thank you, Festivals for Safe Culture. Thank you, Love of Lesbian.