Lots of things came together on the 2nd of July. First of all, due to weird work schedules that I had no control over, I had a day off in the middle of the week. Second, I had a doctor appointment in the morning – lucky how I could fit it there. Third, Jurassic World: Rebirth, the new film in the Jurassic Park franchise came out. Finally, back in January, I had bought tickets to watch a concert in the goodbye tour by the singer who composed the soundtrack of my teenage-angst years.

So it was just a stroke a luck that work just happened to give me the day off because of unrelated reasons. It would have been luckier to have the following day off too but what can one do? Actually, I propose an unpaid leave called “I had a concert yesterday and it’s not that I’m tired or sore or anything, but I don’t want to go back to reality just yet, I deserve to bask in post concert ‘the world is okay’ bliss.” Think about it, it’s a great idea.

Since I had the doctor’s appointment, I could not plan a whole day out. Once I was done there, I changed clothes and then drove off to the train. Of course, there were delays, what else is new? Halfway, one of the doors got stuck open and we could not start until that got closed manually. But instead of blocking it, they allowed it to keep opening at subsequent stations – so it got stuck again and again.

I reached Atocha just in time to change trains and get to Sol using the same system without a wait, so in a few minutes later I was out in the heat. The original idea had been a light lunch at Yatai Market, but the air conditioning in Kawaii Café was stronger. I had been to another of their shops before, and the food was all right, so I thought why not? I ordered a strawberry frappé and a “sleepyhead bunny” Conejito Dormilón – a Red Velvet crêpe filled with strawberry compote and decorated with cheese cream and blueberries, along with a vanilla-jello bunny mascot. Adorable and delicious. Quite pink, too, due to all the strawberry…

When I finished, I headed towards the nearby Yelmo Cines Ideal to watch Jurassic World: Rebirth, a monster movie with a homage to the Jurassic Park book. I guess the film is better if Scarlett Johansson is your type. The film retcons the whole “Jurassic World” premise: now the dinosaurs are dying (and nobody cares about them any more!) and only surviving on an island near the Equator. It turns out that they somehow hold the key to cure heart disease. And then the palaeontologist says that they need to collect samples from the three biggest dinosaurs: Patagotitan (okay, it’s famous now), Mosasaur and Quetzalcoatlus, both of which have already been featured in previous films and are not dinosaurs. Then there are mutated freaks and a Tyrannosaurus with the head of a xenomorph and some extra arms, because the dinosaurs can’t survive, but the “mutated experiments gone wrong” are alive and well? The best from the film was a scene taken from the book, with a Tyrannosaurus and a raft. Unfortunately, this new Tyrannosaurus was not Rexy. Furthermore, the special effects are… not good. Too much bad CGI makes the creatures less believable than those in the 90s instalments, which is… a huge faux pas.

I am glad I saw it on opening day, though – I was able to avoid most spoilers and went in with an open mind. It was not a good film but I didn’t hate it. I will just probably ignore it exists (until the next film comes out, we all know that). Points for the pro-planet message, but it falls a bit flat when you know that Michael Crichton, the original author, was pretty much anti-science…

The film was around 133 minutes long, but oh god, the previews were long. Thus, I left the cinema around 19:30. I had to take the underground, and I knew that some stops would be closed due to Pride. However, last year I had learnt that you’re still allowed to transfer even if you cannot enter or exit the station. I used that knowledge to get myself to Movistar Arena Madrid for Joaquín Sabina’s final tour Hola y Adiós (Hello and Goodbye). I am happy I bought the tickets when I first saw them, because most concerts have sold out, and I got quite a good seat considering the event and the venue.

Joaquín Sabina is a Spanish singer and songwriter born in 1949 in Jaén, in the south of Spain. When he finished his studies, his father offered him a present, and he asked for a guitar. Due to his leftist ideas he had to exile himself in London for a few years during Franco’s dictatorship. When he came back, he lived a life of debauchery, mostly in Madrid, and he probably was not the best role model. But between 1994 and 2000, when I was an angtsy teen, his music was important to me, though I eventually moved away from it. When I heard he was retiring (again) early in the year, I thought I wanted to see him at least once, despite the fact I have not consistently listened to his music much in a couple of decades – there are a few hits in my car playlist. And then there is ¿Quién me ha robado el mes de abril?, Who stole the month of April from me?, which hit me very hard during Covid lockdown and I’ve skipped since then, but never had the heart to delete from the playlists.

Security let me in with my tiny water bottle, thankfully, and I found my seat about 45 minutes before the show was due to start, and 15 minutes after doors – it was weird, I had expected a larger crowd, and I had been a bit stressed leaving the cinema 20 minutes later than what I had calculated. I was on the side stalls, on a ninety-nine-euro spot. There is a whole etiquette about concerts with seats, and while I am quite happy to stand up when it is appropriate, and in this case, I decided I would stand up when people in front of me stood up. Pretty easy.

Setlist:
 Un último vals (One last waltz; recording and MV)
  1. Yo me bajo en Atocha (I’ll alight in Atocha)
  2. Lágrimas de mármol (Marble tears)
  3. Lo niego todo (I deny everything)
  4. Mentiras piadosas (White lies)
  5. Ahora que… (Now that…)
  6. Calle Melancolía (Melancholy Street)
  7. 19 días y 500 noches (19 days and 500 nights)
  8. ¿Quién me ha robado el mes de abril? (Who stole the month of April from me?)
  9. Más de cien mentiras (Over a hundred lies; band intros)
  10. Camas vacías (Empty Beds; vocals: Mara Barros)
  11. Pacto entre caballeros (Pact amongst gentlemen; vocals: Jaime Asúa)
  12. Donde habita el olvido (Where oblivion dwells)
  13. Peces de ciudad (City fish)
  14. Una canción para la Magdalena (A song for Magdalene)
  15. Por el bulevar de los sueños rotos (Through the Broken Dreams Boulevard)
  16. Y sin embargo te quiero (And yet I love you; folk copla song; vocals: Mara Barros) + Y sin embargo (And yet)
  17. Noches de boda (Wedding nights) + Y nos dieron las diez (And the clock struck ten on us)
 Encore:
  18. La canción más hermosa del mundo (The most beautiful song in the world; vocals: Antonio García de Diego)
  19. Tan joven y tan viejo (So young and so old)
  20. Contigo (With you)
  21. Princesa (Princess)
 La canción de los buenos borrachos (The good drunkards’ song; recording)

Well, what can I say? Sabina has got old since I was a teenager. His voice has cracked – after all, he is a smoker – and he has swollen up. But his concert made me feel 30 years younger, and I enjoyed it immensely. I’ll freely admit that I bought the ticket back in January purely out of FOMO. However, I am happy I did. I did not get any of my personal favourites, and I am okay with that. Most of what he sang was part of those times.

The concert started with Yo me bajo en Atocha (I’ll alight in Atocha), a description and homage to the city of Madrid, which the singer holds particularly dear – despite the fact that he has a bad record with concerts in the city – he once had a panic attack and another time he literally fell of the stage and ended up in hospital. He started sobbing right at the end of the song. Figures.

The venue, of course, cheered and applauded, and stood up to bounce to Lágrimas de mármol (Marble tears), which has too dark lyrics for how… perky the music is, but I guess the message of “survivor, yes, damn it” is what matters. It was during Calle Melancolía (Melancholy Street) when the old guard took over, so Sabina turned the microphone towards the attendees, which did not only sing chorus but brought down the dome with their voices. He was visibly moved.

Good thing that next came 19 días y 500 noches (19 days and 500 nights) a getting-over-a-break-up song during which people can yell, and broke the spell. That made me strong enough for ¿Quién me ha robado el mes de abril? (Who stole the month of April from me?), the first time I’ve actually listened to the song since 2020 – “who stole the month of April from me? I kept it in the drawer where I keep my heart” did not sound so threatening surrounded by hundreds of other people.

During Más de cien mentiras (Over a hundred lies), which is a list of all the good things in life and “over a hundred lies that are worth it”, we got the band introductions. Sabina sang himself, and played the guitar for some songs – he stayed sitting down on a tall stool. Safer for him. Antonio García de Diego played guitar, bass, and harmonica; Jaime Asúa Abasolo and Borja Montenegro also played guitar; Josemi Sagaste played sax and non-drums percussions; Pedro Barceló played drums; Laura Gómez Palma played the bass; and Mara Barros did the choruses and had some solo vocals.

Sabina retired to rest for two songs, alleging that it had always been a dream of his to have a song of his sung by a beautiful woman – Camas vacías (Empty Beds), performed by Mara Barros – and by an actual “rocker man” – Pacto entre caballeros (Pact amongst gentlemen) with Jaime Asúa on vocals. Soon after Sabina’s return came a song which holds one of the song lines that has impacted me the most in my whole life: Noches de boda (Wedding nights) hopes that “the end of the world finds you dancing”. I really hope it does.

I guess part of the fun of a concert is that you feel special. Of course that the singer has a speech for every city, and holds each one close to their hearts, or are the best or whatever. But this one did hit differently. I guess my inner child enjoyed it immensely, and even if neither of the songs of the encore did much for me in terms of nostalgia, I was incredibly grateful and happy that I had been able to attend. If it is the last tour indeed, I will have said my hello and goodbye, even if it has been 30 years after the time Joaquín Sabina’s was the only music that played in my room.

Also, another extremely convenient thing: though I went by train, I had a ride home, as my parents were in town and driving back around the same time. Which was great, considering that a storm was brewing, and that there were many underground and train stations still closed due to Pride…