Clinging to a bench but euphoric, Joaquín Sabina today avoided the “curse” that weighs on many of the concerts he has held at the Wizink Center in Madrid, the last of which was the cause of a resounding fall that took him straight to the hospital and to consider his future in music.
“Good evening, thank you very much for coming! Finally, damn it! I’m finally here!”, he could not help but exclaim this Tuesday after “a few years that were a bit tough” before the 12,000 congregants who have celebrated their idol with enthusiasm revived after exhausting all tickets (named, to avoid resale).
It was February 12, 2020, the day he turned 71, when, after losing his footing on the edge of the stage due to a cable and the light of a spotlight, he fell into the pit from almost two meters high, resulting in several trauma, one hospital admission to the ICU and two interventions.
That was added a few days later to the confinement measures due to covid-19, which in his case had to be followed with greater rigor and duration to ensure his recovery, without gatherings or meetings, which – as he would later declare – took away “the desire of everything”.
“So I’ve been out of sorts for a while,” The poet from Úbeda has humorously pointed out in the middle of his journey through Spain and recently landed from performing at the Royal Albert Hall in London, “to celebrate being alive on the same stage in Madrid”.
Beyond the morbidity to see him step on the space of the curse again, and as one of his famous songs says, on this tour entitled “Against all odds” there are plenty of reasons to go once again en masse to see him, for example, the increasingly certain shadow that this is the last.
Another circumstance made this tour news: the departure of the band by decision of Sabina de Pancho Varona himself after 40 years of relationship in which they co-wrote a hundred songs, in addition to working as a musician and producer by his side.
The rest of his emblematic acolytes have been there, including Antonio García de Diego, Jaime Asúa and Mara Torres, in total a septet from Sabinero that has covered his exit to the stage after 9 at night with the entire audience on their feet, on a white bowler hat, striped jacket and to the sound of the jovial “When I was younger”.
Leiva, present in the audience, was later recognized for her talent and wisdom in starting up some of the songs from her most recent era, such as “Lo nego todo” and, before her, “Sentiendo lo mucho”, the one that He anticipates his long-awaited new work for which there is still no date and the one that took him out of the musical ostracism into which he had plunged in these three years.
In this context, those verses from “Lágrimas de marmol” have been loaded with more meaning than ever. that proclaim “Survivor, yes, dammit!”, sung in full collusion with the tide of attendeesbefore whom he dedicated the concert to the memory of his ex-mother-in-law, Carmen Delgado de Torres, who died just a few days ago.
Perhaps as a precaution he has not moved from his bench until the seventh cut, the well-known “Por el boulevard de los sueños ruptos”, the one he co-wrote with Álvaro Urquijo, which was followed by “Llueve sobre mojada” coincidentally on the first afternoon of rainfall in the capital in several months.
Once the equator was reached, a recess was allowed off the stage, leaving some of his colleagues to interpret songs that he can no longer sing: “I want to be an Almodóvar girl” in the voice of Barros and “The most beautiful song in the world “, which has fallen on García de Diego.
“We have managed to break the spell and sing here with all of you and I can already tell you at this stage of the concert that I won’t change for anyone!” Sabina proclaimed euphorically as she returned to occupy her bench, this time with a shirt covered in polka dots and under the notes of “So young and so old” in a semi-acoustic format.
It was almost the last time I renounced intimacy together with “A song for the Madeleine”, because “19 days and 500 nights”, “Peces de ciudad” (which he has dedicated to Ana Belén), “Y sin embargo” (in its customary fusion with the couplet “Y sin te quiero”) have soon arrived in praise of multitudes. in another Barros vocal display) and an electrified “Princess.”
In a repertoire as wide as his and only a two-hour concert, there have been some sacrifices such as “Cerrado por demolición”, which has not even entered the discount time that they have adorned with other essentials such as “Contigo” or “Y nos it struck ten.”
And although he has given the public “Pills to Not Dream” in the apostille, there is little doubt that they will not have an effect on the attendees of this historic evening or on those who will fill this already exorcised Wizink Center again next Thursday.