Cristina Magdaleno Galdona
Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, April 20 (EFE).- “No goodbye guys. So young and so old. Like a rolling stone ”, were perhaps the verses that Sabina uttered most fervently on her return to the Spanish stages this Thursday at the Gran Canaria Arena in front of more than 7,000 people. There he appeared dressed in his inseparable bowler hat, which seems to have his eyebrows incorporated, and a striped jacket for special occasions.
Joaquín Sabina (Úbeda, 1949) arrived in Gran Canaria after putting an end, through a Latin American tour, to three strange years: in his last concert in Spain in February 2020, at the Wizink Center in Madrid, he suffered a spectacular fall that took him to the ICU. He later confessed to having had a bad time during the confinement due to the pandemic and, a little later, the end of the personal and professional relationship of more than 30 years with his former friend and guitarist Pancho Varona.
And, among all this, a point of light: the documentary by Fernando León de Aranoa that gave him back, thanks to Leiva, the desire to compose a song, “Sentiendo lo mucho”, which also earned him a Goya and that sounded this night in second position in the repertoire, after opening with a bit of nostalgia with “Cuando era más joven” and bellowing, in the middle of the song, “Buenas noches Gran Canaria” before a devoted audience to whom he even dedicated a few verses.
“The islands once again as a destination / that cures the anxiety of the pilgrim / like Sancho his Barataria island / hospitable beaches that perfume / the skin of my battles / it is a luxury to return to Gran Canaria”, recounted the singer, who recalled that He had not set foot on the islands for 10 years.
The third and fourth songs, “Lo nego todo” and “Lágrimas de márbol”, both the result of the collaboration in 2018 with Leiva, and with the poet Benjamín Prado, made up the first four songs of the night, just before “White Lies”. ”.
“Best band of my life”
At 74 years old, ‘Flaco’ has returned to the stage with his lifelong songs, but almost all of them with a somewhat more relaxed “tempo” than on previous tours, and with Sabina who spends most of the time from the concert sitting on a stool, blindly trusting his band. Especially Antonio García de Diego and Jaime Asúa, who night after night make his job easier and hide the vocal and physical ailments of the singer. “The best band I’ve ever had in my life, with people who sing better than me,” he said.
They showed it when Sabina needed to take a little breather to be able to continue with the rest of the evening, something she has been doing for years and not only since the mishap at the Wizink Center.
It was then the turn for vocalist Mara Barros to show off, who sang “I want to be an Almodóvar girl” and García de Diego himself on piano, who made “The most beautiful song in the world” his own, whose final verses were taken up by himself Sabina.
More rested, the artist returned to the ring precisely to vindicate himself with “Tan joven y tan viejoç”, which he linked with “A la orilla de la chimney”, in one of the best performances of the night, and “A song for Magdalena”. .
The end of the repertoire before the encores left little time to breathe and the one from Úbeda showed why he is one of the artists with one of the most recognized songbooks, hit after hit with the well-known and hyper-core “19 days and 500 nights ”, “Peces de ciudad” and “Y sin embargo”, which he sang with a lot of help from the fans. And since it was already “too late”, he closed with “Princess”.
Gala Kisses
But Sabina still had a couple of cartridges in the chamber and allowed herself to be rescued on the way backstage. Thus, the concert ended with some encores in which Jaime Asúa began by performing “El caso de la rubia platinum” and, later, with the singer-songwriter again at the helm, “Contigo” and “Noches de Boda” that joined “ And they gave us ten”, that song that, according to what he confessed “for the first time”, he did not write in Mexico but in Lanzarote.
The coup de grace was “Pastillas para no soñar”, at which time he exchanged his guitars for two cymbals and closed the show with an audience in a state of ecstasy.
And in the end, with the lights on, Gran Canaria was the first place in Spain to verify that Sabina continued playing live “as things continue that don’t make much sense” and returning to the place where she has been happy, despite being point to take your own advice and try not to come back.
Now an intense tour awaits him with 30 more stops in Spain, an extra round in America and a finale for which he has chosen, once again, the Wizink Center in Madrid on December 18 and 20. EFE