It feels like I bought these concert tickets in another lifetime, since so much changed in the past 8 months. But they were there, the flight was already booked and non-refundable. Plus, I needed another Spain vacation me-time. So I went to Barcelona on Thursday to see Bunbury again.
After last year’s concert I knew I had to be there again when they announced another tour. And with the famous Huracan Ambulante, I just couldn’t resist. Then something not very good happened in my life at the beginning of the year and I needed to have some positive thing to look forward to – so I bought another ticket for Barcelona. Cheap seat, right under the roof, just to see the show. The partying was reserved for Zaragoza.
In Zurich I have to go on another plane. I hate that airport, it just has no end … The flights are packed and I think the seat did something to my back, I am in pain when I arrive. Barcelona is just too big for me, it’s hot, it’s loud, it’s crowded. I can’t find the cab I ordered, I run circles around the airport for half an hour (which they made me pay extra, because the driver had to wait for me). At least the driver gives me some free water, but we don’t talk much on the way. The hotel is very, very nice, my room is more than perfect for one night and I am happy that I chose to pay 20 Euros more than a 12 bed dormitory would have cost. Barcelona is also expensive like hell.
I get some drinks and food for the time in the queue, and a coffee, but also want have dinner before the concert. And since I have trouble finding some local restaurant which is open at this time, I opt for a well-known pizza chain. They used to have a restaurant next to the house where we lived a few years ago and when I tell my husband where I am we both have to laugh – that’s hell of a detour to get some pizza. But the food is nice, and well-fed I order another cab to take me to the venue. The driver is a bit more chatty than the first one and also has a better taste in music. He takes me as close as he can to the entry which I think was a very nice thing to do. I just didn’t know that there were several entrances and so I miss my friend from Zaragoza whom I wanted to meet here. But we text and decide to meet up later.
The venue is beautiful from the outside, but not at all accessible. The bathrooms are in the basement, like four flights of stairs down and up again. I can’t barely walk, I ask if there was an elevator. There is one, but it’s guarded. I have to argue with the guy if I was allowed to use it, but apparently he is one of these people who don’t believe you have a disability or sickness when they can’t see it. Luckily I seem to have quite an intimidating attitude when I have a full bladder, so he understands it’s either him helping me or spending the rest of the evening in wet shoes. (Remind me to some day tell you the story how I went to the cubicle next to famous German soccer player Birgit Prinz during the World Cup in Wolfsburg, and later finding out this was also the bathroom where they took the urine samples for doping tests …)
When it’s time to get to my seat, I learn that they upgraded me to a lower block, apparently it’s not completely sold out and they moved everyone down. It’s perfect, now it’s opposite to the middle of the stage, only quite far away. But I can see everything and enjoy the show. There are some veeeery enthusiastic fans surrounding me, the kind that knows every word to every song, but doesn’t bother to stand in line for hours or even days and fight with people over square centimetres in front of the stage. Also, the seats are cheaper than the floor, so I totally get it.
There are less people than I thought, but they celebrate a lot. I feel strange, I am not as emotional as I was last year, when I was standing in the front row, bawling my eyes out at Entre dos Tierras and some other songs. I missed all this solo career stuff when it happened, and have a complete different connection to these songs it seems. I like a lot of them, he is playing quite a mixture of everything he did and I have a very good time. Plus, Bunbury is always flawless (the sound however … I didn’t know feedback was still a thing these days.). Every movement is planned, every little gesture – he’s unbuttoning his jacket after the first songs and the crowd turns into something resembling the completely gone mad people during the finest days of the Beatles. He’s the greatest master of puppets and he knows. And the people know that he knows and they simply love it.
Just when the show is about to end, the magician in his cabaret show (I just love the setup of the stage and how they connected these heavy blood red theatrical curtains with a screen) is finally working his magic on me. They play Canto … el mismo dolor. It is one of the songs that helped me through the mentioned bad times. (The other one being La Torre Picasso, by the way …) I record the whole thing while two or three tears leave my eyes. But I wear a mask, so probably no one noticed.
After the show, I find my friend from Zaragoza (the one with the autograph) and her group and we try to find a place to get a drink. Barcelona however doesn’t seem to be a big party spot around Plaça d’Espanya and we have actually some trouble to find an open bar at about midnight after a bis concert. But in the end we are successful and can toast to a great weekend which has only just begun.