Rubén Blades, the salsa storyteller, says goodbye to Barcelona

Years ago, Rubén Blades warned that the day would come when he would hang up his microphone and leave international stages. He had repeated it in interviews and concerts, without it altering his display of salsa mastery in the slightest. Until this Thursday, the promise became a reality. The Panamanian singer-songwriter offered his last dance before the Catalan public at Barcelona's Poble Espanyol, on a stage he knows well and from which he bid farewell forever. He does so at 78 years old, after more than half a century of career, with a surprisingly intact voice and a final demonstration of musical vigor at the Barts festival.

"He holds up very well, the guy," commented a Colombian fan with a laugh as he watched, probably for the last time live, the soundtrack that has accompanied him for half his life. "I'll return as a tourist," Blades promised a city that has welcomed him on countless occasions and with which he maintains a special relationship. And he proved it as he knows best: gifting a generous repertoire of about twenty songs accompanied by the inseparable Roberto Delgado Big Band. It was two and a half hours of unadulterated salsa, with the bittersweet taste of great farewells. The atmosphere was festive, but less euphoric than at other recent events on the same stage, such as Grupo Niche's just a few months ago, also masters of salsa.

Armed with his inexhaustible voice, the Panamanian began the night with Plástico and provoked a first great ovation that set the first dance steps in motion and brought out mobile phones from the first minute among an intergenerational audience. He seemed to be playing at home, which is why he called out nationalities, with Colombians and Venezuelans making their particular show of strength, singing at the top of their lungs the first of so many anthems that would sound during the night.

Blades, however, has never just been a singer of great anthems. Politicized to the core, he is one of those artists who do not hide their ideological stance, neither on social media nor in their songs. This time he spoke little, limiting himself to asking the public to be "solution" in the face of democratic decline and the rise of the far-right. He left the rest to the repertoire: País portátil and Emigrantes spoke for him.

He had time both to remember Venezuela and to pay tribute to his former co-adventurer Willie Colón, whose talent he assures he will always recognize. And from talent to talent, Blades resorted to Ligia Elena to drive the Barcelona audience wild after a slow stretch of the concert, in which the younger ones danced heedlessly to older or less mainstream hits, while the more veteran faithful made their way through the crowd with agile movements, despite their age. No one was left still in the crowded Plaça del Poble Espanyol, where couples kissed and hugged to the rhythm of Amor y control.

But this salsa lawyer (and real lawyer) always keeps an ace up his sleeve. The poet, the chronicler, the storyteller, he saved four classics to close a night that the audience will hardly forget. El cantante, María Lionza, Maestra vida, and finally, Pedro Navaja. He couldn't say goodbye in any other way: by doing what he has been doing for over half a century. Telling stories.