I have come for El Jorn dels Miserables. My sister has come for me, but she also knows the album by heart. I arrived just in time, she had already ordered me a glass of cava. The photo on the poster of Lluís Llach from '76, in black and white and with a tortured gaze, seems to tell us that the third bell has already rung. Second day of the same concert, completely full. And it would fill a third. They say there's Barça, but today that matters very little to us. People who were there in '76, people who were there on October 1st. People who have played the album thousands of times, who know the pauses and the applause in the middle of the songs and the "visca els presos de la Modelo" (long live the prisoners of La Modelo), and the exact moment when Lluís's voice breaks.
Everything, we know it. Marçal Girbau, director of Barnasants, greets me proudly about how everything is going. Laura Cendrós has taken a good seat; in the presidential box today are Pisarello (probable candidate of the Comuns for mayor of Barcelona) and Francina Armengol, former president of the Balearic Islands. The lights go out. Introductory video, setting the context. Llach couldn't be younger (or more serious). "Ai, que plorarem" (Oh, we're going to cry), my sister says. I have come for El Jorn dels Miserables, which doesn't make you cry, but oh, we will cry. The screen goes up. We are in January '76.
Gemma Humet. Despertar (Awakening) (which is not on the album, but was in the concert). Very accurate, Gemma. Simple song, tragically hopeful. Sense of duty. To rise. And so the whole concert, I would almost say: rise, come on, up. Vaixell de Grècia (Greek Ship) also contextualizes the era, Mediterranean, sweet, close, just like Ma tristesa (My Sadness), medievalizing, troubadour-like. At the piano Manel Camp, as in '76; Santi Arisa on drums, as in '76, but only to perform El dia (The Day) (Lluís Ribalta on the rest of the pieces).
To rise, we were saying. Cal que neixin flors a cada instant (Flowers must be born at every moment), they sing to us now, damn it. That's how the concert will be: a constant invocation to a faith that is not waiting. To return, and to return, knowing that others also return. General comment: "It seems like no time has passed." A claustrophobic feeling, in that sense: we are in the same place. We are in January '76, in many ways. With anger, with frustration, with a desire for justice, with the hangover of a night harder than expected. Amnesty, freedom. We are right there. I was two years old and everything seemed possible, they have always told me.
Joan Reig promises, in this first appearance about faith. He promises and swears, and seems someone bewitched by the llachiana fever since he fell into the cauldron as a child. The microphones beep too often, the sound technicians get distracted. My sister has already blown her nose once. "En Maurici sap molt bé que si només dubta poca cosa té". Afterwards, Respon-me transforms into a new showcase for Gemma Humet (and Borja Penalba's accompaniments): we had it rusty, the first song on the album, but it appeared like a precious toy kept in a drawer. "Qui damunt de tants cossos aixafats va aixecar aquella casa per a tothom". And then, Silenci, with the mimetic participation of the audience, just as it appears in the recording. For some reason, today's concert is about the same thing, and attention remains shared between stage and audience. But the star, the icon of the poster, is still missing. They only ask us for a ten-minute break.
When he appears, Llach gives a long speech. Recognition to the Catalan bourgeoisie (to a part of the Catalan bourgeoisie, he clarifies): Oriol Regàs, Espar Ticó, Ermengol Passola. And slaps left and right against the socialists, for being traitors to the idea, for being the shame of the left, for having destroyed hope with Felipe González and destroying it now too. Pisarello and Armengol do not applaud. Llach apologizes for the length of his invocation to ideological generosity among independentistas, "but it's just that…". Applause and shouts. "In, inde". No movement in the presidential box. Reig sings L'estaca, Gemma, La gallineta (here Armengol and Pisarello do vibrate), Fredrik Strand performs Si arribeu with the protagonist and Penalba excels in Abril 74. My sister is a bag of tears right now. Me, inside, too. "Porteu tots els meus cants i un ram de flors vermerlles a qui tant he estimat".
El Jorn dels Miserables is a majestic blues or a gospel with trumpets, with its best version at the Camp Nou concert in '85, but the duo between Llach and Reig makes me almost have to get up to dance. Llach brings out his monster, the use of the voice as an intelligible instrument, which is one of his great sincerities: as the song says, sometimes words are not enough and you can only bellow a black magic ("caldrà buscar nous camins on no calguin les paraules", as he stylistically sublimated two years later with the song Dibuix). Then we will go to Ítaca, integral version, with that clang of cymbals that emulates the waves and a Coral Escriny de Santpedor that symphonically elevates the ending. Without Llach: Llach will reappear for the very tender A força de nits, leaning on the piano. Humet masterfully hits the keys. Lluís makes a mistake, as he irremediably does in almost every concert. Reig's El bandoler has nothing to envy the vocal display for which Llach composed it. We are at the end, the musicians come out to greet and we finish with L'estaca again, now with the young tortured man from Verges present on stage, and then flowing into our other national anthem. We are in the year '76, but we have to get up. Get up for the causes and also for the anthems. Especially if there are so many, and one after another.