Spain is about to go through its second heat wave in two weeks, starting this Sunday. We are recording record temperatures in some of the coldest regions of the country and it is estimated that the number of deaths in June linked to the heat exceeded a thousand. Who could resist a festival in Madrid?
It’s a joke. Luckily, we can cope with the exaggerated temperatures with the best live music. It would not be honest to say that the heat has not marked much of the first day of Río Babel, more than anything because it is conditioning any activity carried out outdoors during these days. What’s more, it made the audience at the festival held at the Miguel Ríos Auditorium in Rivas-Vaciamadrid behave differently depending on the level of suffocation present.
Between 6 and 7 p.m., Rivas reaches 37 degrees. When Chambao They are about to go out to celebrate their 25th anniversary on stage, around 8:30 p.m., the temperature has dropped one point. For the moment, the venue is far from full and the attendees present do not separate themselves from the fan or the shadow that they manage. This is the first way to take heat: badly.
Despite how lively and fun La Mari is, and the freshness of songs like ‘Duende del Sur’ or ‘Playas de Barbate’, you are so disgusted that you don’t even feel like applauding. At these moments, the glass is inseparable from the palm of your hand. So much so that you end up adopting the applause for the deaf along with the rest of the audience. La Mari doesn’t like this too much: “Thank you very much for such abundant applause, we are already going deaf,” she says. “Very hot, right?” he concludes. When the artist introduces her very varied band, magnificent in songs like ‘Poquito a poco’, ‘There you are’ or ‘Papeles Mojados’, she addresses directly the section of the audience that is watching what will be Amaia’s stage due to its thunderous lack of applause: “You have come too, right?”
The embarrassment also causes some attendees to be unable to stop talking to their companions in the middle of the concert, or just when the vocalist is giving a pro-life speech. The heat is making you feel terrible, but La Mari’s words are very real: “We must celebrate life, we take everything for granted. The only thing that matters is that we are alive.
If you pass this first phase, you are safe. The sun goes away. The track fills up. It’s still hot, but the concert Amaia It serves as a spell against sweat and discomfort. While around you some people faint, you are stunned during ‘The Impossible Life’. You now have the ability to applaud again.
This is the only concert that the Pamplona native has scheduled this year in Madrid and the first stop on her summer festival tour. Amaia seems a little confused at first, asking attendees if they prefer to be referred to as “Rivas or Madrid?” Naturalness works in your favor. In the middle of ‘Me pongo colorada’, he stops pressing the keys because he can’t remember the lyrics: «Was it hair? No… It was hair. We live for this.
Only she can silence an audience upset by the heat. The interpretations of ‘Ya Esta’ or ‘Auxiliar’ have been more respected on other occasions, but compared to what the atmosphere was like in Chambao, the Pamplona native achieves quite a bit. “You must have already drunk some cigars, of course, but now I ask you to be quiet, please,” he exclaims. You remember that ‘MAPS’ and ‘Giratutto’ are the most party-loving ones on the set, but it doesn’t translate to reality. We’re all a little stunned. The final stretch of the concert, with the new ‘Aralar’ or the improvised a cappella of ‘Nuevo Verano’, is just as exciting, tender and comical as in previous meetings. ‘Yamaguchi’, the same one that gave me a stendhalazo last year in Warm Up, now makes me laugh thanks to a girl who sings it in its entirety to a mobile waitress who was passing by.
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That moment when it’s hotter than usual, but it’s fine anyway. The “how good it is.” This is achieved by getting away from the public and cooling off in the stands of the Miguel Ríos Auditorium, perfect for the massive concert of FASHIONperhaps the band with the most audience of the day. It is a great way to see the concert of the group from Burgos, which has the appearance of a folk group, but does not stop launching stadium anthems, one after another.
Yes, ironically, the heap and rumble of the bass is slightly missed. The angelic moments of a massive choir that the audience gives are much more appreciated from a distance, but you run the risk of not getting into the concert. It happens to my companion, who asks “why have you been singing the same song for half an hour?”
MODA has the best stage design of the day, imitating the roof of a building with a large light sign. The new songs, like ‘San Felices’ or ‘I don’t need you to be happy’, work, but the classics rock: ‘Vasos Vacíos’, ‘Catedrales’, the solemnity of ‘Hay Un Fuego’, the collective energy of ‘1932’ and ‘Héroes del Sábado’… The setlist is so powerful that, for some, the night has already come to an end.
Not before the great demand of the day: “The public children’s schools of the Community of Madrid have been on uninterrupted strike for 3 months and they don’t pay any attention to us,” denounces a teacher invited by the band. Among other issues, they claim to be collecting the SMI doing the same work as the rest of the educational branches: “We don’t save, we educate,” he says.
By the time it’s time to The Stickerand Ultralight shortly after, you don’t care about anything. You have a few beers with you, but dehydration can no longer reach you. It’s time to sweat it again. You’ve been dripping all day, so a little longer is fine. The circle is closed. Songs like ‘Olivia’ or ‘Mari Carmen’ are ideal for this. If they also include winks to songs known by absolutely everyone, like ‘All The Small Things’ or the melody of ‘Better Off Alone’, all the better. Nobody goes to see La Pegatina expecting a concert like Amaia’s. He goes to the party and party is what it is.
We couldn’t stay for the Ultraligera concert, but they were already announcing the stage tests, full of flames, that weren’t going to stop sweating. In fact, it seemed to me that the fires were activated right to the rhythm of La Pegatina’s ska. Maybe I hallucinated. Maybe it was a mirage. Does that mean Babel River was an oasis?
