The Rigoberta Bandini phenomenon has been like a summer storm. A little over two years ago, in February 2020, she released her first single, with an uninspiring title, Too many drugs. In a few months, with the lockdown and its successive extensions, came Fiesta, Que cristo baje, Cuando tú nazcas, passing somewhat unnoticed, until In Spain We Call It Soledad arrived, in August of the first year of the pandemic. More powerful, and when no one could go out to party, it marked a style that would culminate in Perra, Paula Ribó's great success, which would then be followed by A ver qué pasa and the already universal classic, though not Eurovision, Ay mamá.
Born in the midst of the pandemic, discovered through stories and homemade concerts from a time when one couldn't even imagine when they would jump, sweat, and scream again in a packed Palau Sant Jordi like this Thursday's. Rigoberta Bandini has achieved unexpected and meteoric success, she has even written a book. All of this has made her "fed up" and she is saying goodbye to the stage a month after releasing her first album, La emperatriz, in which she recovers most of the singles she had already published and adds some unreleased songs.
It seems she started backwards and got tired quickly, but she has consolidated a sufficient audience that doesn't care much about all this. The singer, already feeling nostalgic, paid tribute to them by starting with In Spain We Call it Soledad, knowing that was when many began to chant it. Then she included Jaume Sisa's Qualsevol nit pot sortir el sol, in case the welcome hadn't been clear. She continued with Canciones de amor a ti, an unreleased title from her first and last album for now, dedicated to her son, one of her recurring themes. Other brand new songs from the album also played, such as Tú y yo or Que vivir sea un jardín, as well as some of her latest singles, including Julio Iglesias and A todos mis amantes, with the included appearance of a capgròs that came to represent all the exes.
Jacinto, as Ribó called him, fled in terror when a pack of bitches appeared. "But this is full of bitches," she stated, "and here is the biggest bitch," she said, when her cousin, Belen Barenys, burst in, a backing vocalist who had accompanied her for these two years until she slowed down due to her pregnancy. But Sant Jordi is Sant Jordi and Barenys performed a doggy rap.
The ecstasy has continued, as it could not be otherwise, with Ay mamá, chorus included. And Rigo and her cousin have shown their breasts, knowing that on stage there are no pixels that matter. After the reveal, the fan moment came, playing modern and starring in a BeReal, although she admitted that for that she already feels a bit boomer.
The second surprise was not long in coming. With Así bailaba, the question was whether Amaia, who lives in Barcelona, would appear. She did not disappoint. The Palau Sant Jordi thundered with the version of a song that has aged very quickly from Los Payasos de la Tele. With the adaptation by Amaia and Rigoberta Bandini, the one we would have preferred to hear as children, people danced and jumped rope, warming up for the end. The Barcelona singer wanted to end by returning to her most authentic origins, saying goodbye to her city with the Caillou song with which she debuted in the musical world as a child and Too many drugs, the first one that was exclusively hers. It was then that her neighbors realized that they would have to wait to see her again, but, knowing her, it won't be long.