The best farewell to remember Joaquín Sabina

"It's wonderful to sing with you," Joaquín Sabina repeated several times. That was it, to sing for the last time accompanying the singer-songwriter from Úbeda. "It's wonderful," he insisted, overwhelmed by the response of the audience that filled the Palau Sant Jordi for the first of Sabina's last two concerts in Barcelona (the second is on Saturday). Tickets were sold out and everyone was seated in their seats when the performance began at 9:20 p.m., twenty minutes later than scheduled precisely to allow time for those who suffered circulatory collapse due to The demonstration protesting the Israeli assault on the flotilla that wanted to reach Gaza.

Sabina says goodbye at 76 years old, at least from his musical life on stage, as he did three years ago Joan Manuel Serrat, teacher and colleague who did not want to miss the performance, and who he made stand up to receive an ovation before dedicating it to him Melancholy StreetBy the way, a few minutes before I had remembered the times when I listened L'home del carrer, by Quico Pino de la Sierra; Tribute to Teresa, by Ovidi Montllor, and Paraules d'amor, "del noi del Poble-sec".

The concert started with the cards facing up. "Barcelona, hello and goodbye" projected on the screens, like the music video for The Last Waltz, to make it clear that now, yes, he is leaving of his own free will, and not because his health or a fall forces him to give up. Tears of marble and I deny everything, twilight recapitulations of glories and miseries, served as a prelude before entering the sensitive material. Sabina, wearing a hat and light-colored jacket, sings them seated on a stool, his voice full of reverberation, in tune but raspy. He takes his bow, accepts the ovation, and manages the emotion with serenity and gratitude. There will be rigor and few jokes throughout two hours. Only the memory of the best Sabina: the author of a songbook that is so difficult to cover because only Sabina's voice, the younger and the one of today, makes it truly credible.

Anthological repertoire

It's immediately clear that this will be a night of anthological repertoire, a well-chosen selection from the entire discography. White lies, a tragicomedy that he performs with a smile, and settles into the best of his work. "As I knew this would be the last tour, I opened the trunk of half-forgotten old songs to recover some," he says, lying a little, because immediately afterward he does Melancholy Street, "the second or third" he composed, he says. It's true that it had been dropped from the live repertoire for years, but it can by no means be considered half-forgotten: just look at how the audience sings it. It links it to the rumba de rumbas 19 days and 500 nights. These are two songs that condense the best of Sabina, the lyrical talent especially gifted for melancholy, and the narrator of stories of heartbreak and spite with just the right dose of drama and fun. This sequence, completed with Who robbed me in April?, demonstrates the depth of Sabina's legacy in Spanish-language songwriting, and the respect he is showing for the audience on this tour so that the farewell is worthy of the connection so many people have with his songbook.

It also respects the band, efficient as always and this time with more flair to take on a more leisurely repertoire, performed with less stridency than on previous tours. It introduces the musicians mid-concert while they play More than a hundred lies: Jaime Asúa (guitar), Mara Barros (vocals), Laura Gómez Palma (bass), Pedro Barceló (drums), Borja Montenegro (guitar), José Sagaste (saxophone and keyboards) and Antonio García de Diego (keyboards, vocals, guitar and musical direction).

"As it's the farewell tour, I've decided to fulfill some unfulfilled fantasies. Two, specifically. When I finished a song I always thought about how it would sound in the voice of a girl. And when I finished a rock song, I thought about how it would sound in the voice of a true rocker. I'm leaving you in the best of company" says Sabina, and once again he's lying a little because he leaves the stage as he has done in other tours so that Mara Barros and Jaime Asúa can sing some songs. Two, specifically: Empty beds she, and Gentleman's agreement he.

Bob Dylan and Chavela Vargas

Sabina returns with a black hat and a black shirt with white polka dots, and sitting down he continues to give away great songs, like Dylan's City fish (a weakness of this chronicler), the Sabina who picks up influences naturally. He also interprets Along the boulevard of broken dreams, which takes the opportunity to pay tribute to Chavela Vargas, and the band plays it with the impetus of Glory days Bruce Springsteen, another influence, this one perhaps less obvious. At this point in the concert, it's clear that the event will be memorable in the best sense. The most exciting moment comes almost by surprise. Sabina and Barros share A song for the Magdalena, and he drags out the last verse as if his breath had surrendered its weapons. He breathes. The audience rises and cheers him on. He takes off his hat and looks without looking. We have him. Goosebumps. Applause. As Sabina repeated, "how wonderful." It's understandable that a musician doesn't want to leave the stage. There's no drug capable of offering a reward of that magnitude.

With the acoustic guitar as a shield, he makes And it was ten o'clock., whose intimacy suits him well, without insisting on the rhetorical cliché of nostalgia. He leaves to a standing ovation, understandably. The band begins the encore with Antonio García de Diego singing The most beautiful song in the world, and Sabina returns with a black jacket and t-shirt to offer the final stretch with So young and so old, Bob Dylan again in the rearview mirror, and also with a very exciting tone that equally soaks With youIt's the Sabina of a small venue, but in a huge space where the chorus sung by the audience resonates. The ending, of course, had to be grand, with the electric guitars and the saxophone catapulting PrincessTwo hours to say goodbye. The best possible farewell to Joaquín Sabina. On Saturday, another sold-out performance at the Palau Sant Jordi. Then, three concerts in Valencia, two in Bilbao, and six in Madrid.