“Thank you, Barcelona” – that was the concert with 5000 people despite Corona

HThe sun is coming: When the concert should have started a long time ago, but there were still people queuing outside, the Beatles classic was playing in the room. People cheer, clench their fists, raise their hands, dance very close together. Fall into the arms of the other. Or just shine at each other.

Yes, here comes the sun. For around 5000 music fans this Saturday night at Palau Sant Jordi on Barcelona’s local Montjuïc mountain, and if things go well, all over the world for an industry suffering from spreader defect like no other. But it is at least seen as a sign of hope: the first major concert without social distancing in the Western world since the outbreak of the corona pandemic.

“Welcome to one of the most emotional concerts of our life, I’m about to cry”, finally greets the audience Santi Balmes, singer of the band “Love of Lesbian”. He’s wearing a T-shirt that says “Whores Ganas”, you fucking goat. Like all artists, he had been on the sidelines for over a year.

But who plays here, he’ll say himself at the end of the night, it doesn’t really matter. What matters is that there is tonight. Tickets were sold out in a few hours and the historical dimension lies in the added fresh air in the lobby. At the end Balmes will shout: “Now you can say forever with a big smile: ‘I was there'”.

Enhanced antigen testing made the “leap”

It takes courage, creativity, perseverance and, in times of pandemic, an especially terrible plan to make history. In this case, it consisted of the construction of a “city of a day”, as co-organizer Jordi Herreruela told WELT. The city’s music and festival promoters have been working on a corresponding concept since April 2020 and authorities have processed it with it. But a “technological leap” was needed to implement it.

It came in the fall with improved antigen testing. These still cannot completely rule out false negative results; but someone with a contagious amount of virus tests negative. At least that was the result of an extensive experiment carried out in December by experts from the Germans Trias i Pujol hospital with counter-controls using PCR tests.

An event of 500 people at the Apolo nightclub was staged without social distance, but without contagion. The “Love of Lesbian” concert is now the calculated extension of this party zone. The same scientists supervised the concert of the event and politicians also agreed. “There is nothing crazy or daring behind this initiative,” says Herreruela, “but rigor and know-how.”

Saturday morning, childhood friends and a pioneering atmosphere at the “Razzmatazz” club in the old industrial district of Poblenou in Barcelona. Volunteers stand in front of the turntables and dozens of test booths under the disco ball. If you have a ticket for the evening concert, you have to activate it during the day with a negative antigen test. You have been given an appointment in one of the three dance halls and a personalized test code linked to the entrance through a mobile phone. phone app.

After the tour of the disco, the test persons await their result at the exit. Collective glance at the cell phone, then a small smile or a cry of relief when exactly fifteen minutes later the result appears on the screen. Green for negative: only four of the around 5000 tests were positive, and that will also be announced by singer Balmes from the stage at night.

A song change hardly happens without referencing the Subject: Crown. Due to the white FFP2 masks, which is insisted on as double protection, it is always present anyway. From above, they make the crowd look like a dancing moonscape. Anyone who briefly pulls up the mask is immediately warned by plainclothes inspectors. Perhaps this is the concert aesthetic of the future, just like smartphone lights were once new.

It’s not an old normal either: drinks can only be had in the bars next to the room, and in view of the fresh air, no one manages to break a sweat. The hallway is as clean as it looks. A robot was even hunted beforehand that disinfected them with ultraviolet light.

On the other hand, the crowd swirls as usual. Girls sit on their boys’ shoulders, hands fly from left to right and vice versa. The light show bathes the audience in blue, red, pink, purple, and from the originally planned separation into sectors of the hall, which normally seats almost 20,000 spectators, soon there is not much to see: everyone is drawn to it. across the stage.

You can ask the band for an encore as usual, and at the end it says, according to the old ritual: “Thanks, Barcelona!”. If all goes well, that is, free of contagion, then this phrase can still be said. often and in many places.

“Everyone is watching this concert,” Herreruela believes, he speaks of the “Olympic spirit.” It still has more positive connotations in Barcelona than anywhere else: the 1992 summer games transformed the port city into a modern metropolis and, with its iconic Montjuïc landmarks, the lively atmosphere and the perfect organization, they are still widely regarded as the best ever.

“Creativity, citizenship and creativity, all working together, now we have recovered this spirit”, says Herreruela, head of the Cruïlla music festival and one of the protagonists of “Safe Culture”, as the initiative is called: Safe Culture.

200,000 euros of cost

In fact, it is no coincidence that Barcelona have dared to step forward. Catalonia sees itself particularly as a cultural region. Besides schools, museums were the only ones that never closed in the second and third waves. Theaters and cinemas were allowed to reopen before restaurants. In addition, there is an open-minded technology, an image of itself as “Smart City”: with the management of test data through the mobile phone application, for example, very few have a problem here.

But above all there was the music scene itself. “We do not wait for the authorities, we continue to make suggestions,” says Herreruela. Organizers accepted the huge logistical effort as well as a loss: just under half of the roughly € 200,000 in costs could be rolled over through ticket sales.

When and if the investment is worth it? Primavera Sound and Sonar, the big summer festivals, have already canceled for 2021 despite their participation in the pilot project. They have a strong international focus in terms of lineup and visitors. Herreruela, on the other hand, wants to taste her Cruïlla; the independent festival traditionally draws a more local audience. In July, a mixed concept of already vaccinated visitors and antigen testing will target 25,000 people and a three-day city.

“This bubble is closing now,” says the singer of “Love of Lesbian” Balmes at the Palau Sant Jordi. On the balcony of the living room, people stop with a last cigarette, the city at their feet. Like then at Olympia, like before after the concerts. Or maybe not. Cigarettes go out quickly, the bar closes, everyone has to go home, after ten the curfew that has been imposed for many months will be applied again. Germans can go to Mallorca at Easter, but Spaniards must stay in their regions.

In two weeks there will be scientifically proven findings on the success of the project. For now the memory remains, of the lights and the noise, of the amazement and of the laughter. A couple of hours of magic, a touch of rock ‘n’ roll.