Miguel Bosé lives on reminiscence and that's it.

BarcelonaConclusions about Miguel Bosé's concert at the Palau Sant Jordi this Thursday. First: Miguel Bosé thrives on reminiscences, and the audience accepts and celebrates nostalgia. At 69 years old and without any new albums, fromOwner (2014), compares music to perfume because it fixes "emotions, memories, sensations." "You'll feel younger," he said before making I am air and trusting the night solely in nostalgia, in the songs more than in the interpretation of the songs from the present. The renunciation is absolute, but it sets the conditions of the contract so explicitly that it fools no one.

The second conclusion: the 8,500 people who went up Montjuïc and ended the night applauding him and shouting "oe-oe-oe-oe" separate the work from the artist, or rather, they separate the songs and the artist from the irresponsible defender of conir of irresponsible defender. There is no redemption because there is no contrition. It is true that the co-author of Don Diablo He hedged his bets and avoided bringing up the apocalyptic nonsense he's been spreading since the coronavirus pandemic. His most poignant remarks were about the anti-war song. Nothing particular, a horrible song, by the way. The playlist One of the worst songs in history is also full of good intentions. "The war will never end if we don't stand firm. Not one fucking vote if they don't give us back the right to live in peace. War is a business and peace isn't. Enough, or I'll end up giving a rally and not a concert!" he exclaimed.

The third conclusion is that, in the songs, the voice that was heard was correct, always in the same deep-dark register and with a lot of reverb. However, when Bosé spoke he lost his breath, like smokers who gasp for air to finish their sentences.

The fourth has to do with the desire to offer a good show, with a simple, elegant, and generous chromatic aesthetic: two and a half hours. He began the concert dressed in white, like the five musicians and three choristers. Halfway through the performance (only he) appeared in red, with a very long train that would be all the rage at a Met Gala dedicated to The Mask of the Red Death, by Edgar Allan Poe. And he performed the encores in yellow. All of this accompanied by sufficiently fluid choreographies, some demanding more indulgence than others, but generally well-resolved. It's only fair to acknowledge the aesthetic work behind this return, although not everything that was sold as modern forty years ago stands the test of time; it probably wasn't that modern back then either.

The fifth conclusion concerns the audience (everyone seated), who received Bosé with the ovation reserved for missed artists, all warmth and unconditional support. It was the essential life support, and he was grateful for it. "Barcelona, ​​I have no words," he said with a smile that soothed his tiredness just before closing the show with the emotional self-help of For youAt the beginning of the concert, the audience was engaged in gestures, reacting with shouts when Bosé grabbed his package. Captain Thunder's son or when he hid by taking off his coat-cape Little girl. Or applauding intensely the tribute to the dead mother beforeFriend, which he sang sitting in a red box that he himself compared to a coffin in a decision more in keeping with a kitsch Angelica Liddell. Evidently, the reaction was more and more enthusiastic the more powerful the memory linked to the songs. After rather flat moments, the climax arrived, like that of Like a wolf, one of the best moments of the night, and that of I believe in you, José Luis Perales' gift, more recited than sung, and which the audience accompanied from head to toe.

Nostalgia unleashed as Bosé had predicted, the final stretch was for the masses to bathe, with a festive and intense: a Bandit Lover made with success in the key of a foam party followed by the cheesy poetic inflammation of I will love you, and a Don Diablo which sounds like a children's song and which he performed sitting like a storyteller just before the anticlimactic final encore of For youA night of reminiscences of a past perhaps not as brilliant as Miguel Bosé thinks, but undoubtedly effective in activating nostalgic disinhibitions.