Roger Casamajor finds it hard to choose the best summer night –“many can’t be explained”–, but there’s one from years ago that he’ll always remember very fondly. “Next year my band, Hysteriofunk, will be 30 years old. When we were 22 or 23 years old, the band's bassist decided he would get married in a hippy style in Ibiza, so we all went to the island from Andorra. When we arrived in Ibiza, it turned out that nothing had been set up at all, so we had to find a way to get everything we needed to have a good rave. We spent all our money on sound equipment, so we ended up sleeping in an abandoned house that was falling apart. The day after the wedding, we all woke up covered in fleas.”

Blanca Pujals became an editor through a brave decision. She had tired of her job as a lawyer and enrolled in a master's degree in editing, which was what she had always wanted to do as a child: live surrounded by books. From her master's final project, a project emerged that she presented to Viena publishing house, thus was born Petits Plaers, a collection of novellas, short books of high literary quality. One of the most special summer nights of her life was, precisely, sharing the reading of one of the collection's most emblematic books –Good morning, sadness, by Françoise Sagan– on board a boat in L'Escala. 

There is a summer night that Aliou Diallo never misses: the last night of Salt's main festival. “After a whole day of concerts, at 4 in the morning, the correfoc arrives, led by the Diables d’en Pere Botero, and often some other invited group. The correfoc winds through the town and ends at the church, in the old quarter, with a hot chocolate and a foam party that coincides with sunrise. It is a magical night that we look forward to all year, a night that makes you want to bring people to discover its magic. On this night, the essence of Salt is very much alive,” explains Diallo, who participated in the Salt main festival for the first time when he was 15 years old, as an active member of the scout group, after arriving in Catalonia from the Republic of Guinea at the age of 13.

One of the most special summer nights Pepa Plana remembers is the night before her first show as a clown. “Thirty years have passed and I still remember all the excitement of premiering a first adventure that we didn't know where it would lead us,” she says. That first show, De Pe a Pa, she premiered at the Fira de Tàrrega at the hands of Joan Busquets, a clown and theatre director who died of cancer in 2010 and whom Plana misses terribly. “He was a very good clown, and he was always very generous with me. He took me by the hand and made me walk as a clown. Oh, how I like to bring him down and have him appear in a conversation,” she exclaims. 

One of the most special nights in the life of the writer Joan-Lluís Lluís –“senña comptar les més íntimes, esclar”–, was the summer of 1985 in Sardinia. “It was a totally unforeseen trip that ended in a slightly alcoholic night of fraternity,” he advances. Before going into explaining the story and understanding the state of his spirit, we must go back a few days before the trip, to the night of July 6th. “More than 100,000 people filled the Camp Nou for Lluís Llach’s concert. It is the biggest concert of song in Catalan, I think at that time it was a world record for a solo singer. There were spectators from all the Catalan Countries, I went from Perpignan by bus. It was a concert of colossal dimensions,” explains the writer, who adds: “To put it briefly, I entered the concert and I was a young Catalanist and when I left I was a young independentist”.

Summer is here, it's hot and the beaches are filling up, and what for many people may seem like an easy association of ideas – I'm hot, I'm going to the beach – isn't always so for everyone. “When you're a trans woman and you haven't had surgery, going to the beach can be difficult,” explains Tina Recio, the founder of Ivaginarium, an organization that for ten years has been accompanying trans women who want to undergo a vaginoplasty process free of charge. “Before the operation, many of us use items to hide the genitals we were born with, such as a skirt or a sarong, but it's still an exposure that can be very unbearable for us; you feel exposed in a place surrounded by naked or semi-naked people. Many trans women don't go to the beach until they've had surgery or completed their transition. While you're transitioning, it's also complicated: you might still be wearing a wig, hairpieces, or makeup, and all of that, at the beach, becomes uncomfortable,” says Recio.

Singer Xènia Casado is living this summer in expansion mode: “I'm moving in with my partner and it makes me very happy, it's the first time I'm going to live with someone I love, the first time my fears of commitment are weaker than my desire to love,” she says. This summer, she assures, “will be the beginning of many good things. This summer my musical career will take a turn, and in a few years I will be what Figa Flawas, The Tyets, Julieta or Mushka are now. I will be the new voice of Catalonia, I am already manifesting it”.

Long Li Xue was clear that for his 25th birthday he wanted to have a big party, which he now remembers as one of the most memorable summer nights of his life. “I was particularly excited to celebrate my birthday because you only turn a quarter of a century once,” he explains. The influencer has his birthday on August 8th, and anyone whose birthday falls in the summer knows that friends are often unavailable or traveling. “In the summer it’s always a bit more difficult to coordinate dates, everyone has things going on, but this time we managed to have 100 people. It was nice to reconnect with friends from high school and university, from Girona and Barcelona, and bring them all together.” For the occasion, last summer, Long hired the Catalan trap group P.A.W.N. Gang to perform a concert at his home. “I even hired a Toi Toi [portable toilet service] to put in the garden. I didn’t know these things were so expensive, 300 euros for one night, wow!”, explains Long, who shared the party expenses with one of his best friends, Santi, who also celebrates his birthday on August 8th and with whom they have been having joint parties for years. The surprise expense of the party came with the freshly turned 25: the police showed up at the house to fine Long for the noise. “It was worth it, I’ve never paid a fine so happily,” he assures.    

The best summer nights that Ramon Madaula remembers have always been on a porch. "Whenever I think of summer nights, I think of a porch. It's a space that allows you to have dinner, chat, play cards…", says the actor. Of all the porches that have been in his life, one of the ones he remembers most is that of a farmhouse they rented for a couple of summers in Ibiza, twenty years ago. "I remember those nights as some of the most beautiful of my life, with my wife, my daughters, and some of my daughters' friends. A very pleasant breeze passed through the porch of that house, we were almost alone on that side of the island, and at night you could hear the cicadas. The girls were at a very beautiful age, they were about 12 or 13 years old, you could already talk to them, we played cards until late and had many fun times together", Madaula recalls.

The most special summer night of Araceli Segarra's life was also one of the most terrifying of her life. She was 20 years old and had three months of summer freedom, which she spent between Ireland and Kenya. In Ireland, she was working at a YMCA, and in Kenya, she went with some friends, with the aim of climbing Mount Kenya, the highest mountain in Africa after Kilimanjaro. The mountaineer remembers that experience as one of the most impactful: “We slept halfway up the wall and had a serious setback: our little stove fell out of our backpack, and then we couldn't melt snow. When we faced the return, we had been a day and a half without water. My companions wanted to go back to where we had slept the night before, which was closer, but there was no water, and I decided to go alone to base camp, where I would find water, even though I would have to walk a few more hours. We separated, and I spent all those hours walking alone at night through Kenya. For me, it was a transformative night, I faced many mental obstacles, and I feel it made me very strong. It was a very tough night, during which I was afraid: of not remembering the way, of someone coming and finding me alone... And at the same time, it was very beautiful. I remember arriving at base camp and throwing myself into the lake as if I were one of those leopards that drink water like crazy, without purifying the water or anything.” 

When Bàrbara Mestanza was a teenager, she was "obsessed with her period". "I was fifteen and still hadn't gotten it. I remember changing and the other girls looking at me strangely, I had no breasts, no pubic hair, nothing. I had been going to the doctor for two years to see if there was any problem, and they always said the same thing, it will come. Meanwhile, I prayed every night to wake up the next day and have grown breasts".

There is a summer night that the writer Laila Karrouch will always remember: the first time she returned to Morocco after emigrating with her family to Catalonia when she was only eight years old. “We left the country in 1985 and in 1988 we had finally saved enough to be able to visit family again. That first night was very special, I remember a lot of joy and a lot of tears, especially from grandma, and I remember the taste of watermelon, which was very sweet. In Morocco we didn't have a fridge and in the evening we would put the fruit in the little window to keep it fresh. The fruit was always delicious,” Karrouch recalls.

Ramon Mirabet had been playing on the street for years when life took him to Glenfinnan, in the Scottish Highlands. “I slept in a train carriage in the middle of the woods, alone, and there was a very small TV in the driver’s compartment – he explains–. One day I turned it on and the Estrella Damm summer advert came on. I heard it and thought: one day it will be my music that plays in the advert.” Years later, when he had already made a name for himself on stage, he received the commission: “Do you want to record the song for this summer’s advert?” I still remember my answer: “I’d been waiting for that message for a long time!”

The first time Remei Sipi put on a sweater she was 16 years old. “It was when I arrived in Catalonia. Before, I had lived in a country, Equatorial Guinea, where there were no summers or winters, there was a sunny season and a rainy season, but it was always hot,” explains the writer, who still has a very vivid memory of the walk she took in the rain to go to school. “My friend would come to pick me up and to avoid getting wet, we would cover ourselves with banana leaves,” she recalls.

The summer nights that Sheila Quero, singer of the group Maruja Limón, remembers most are those spent around Sant Joan with the whole family at a campsite in Sant Pol de Mar, where they vacationed every season. “On Sant Joan night we would set up a giant table and all the surrounding families would gather. We spent hours singing, enjoying, and sharing. I was little and it seemed wonderful to be able to go to bed so late. The sense of community was immense, I remember we would fry sardines and set off fireworks. From June to September, my brothers and I had the opportunity to live wildly among the pine trees and the beach, enjoying the Catalan coast, which is wonderful,” explains Quero.

Ada Parellada isn't interested in summer nights "in the towns on the Catalan coast that have become shopping centers at all." "Forget Cadaqués, give me western Catalonia, which is still free and where authentic things still happen," she claims. "You go to Les Garrigues and you still find authenticity there, doors that don't lock, the sepulchral silence at three in the afternoon because everyone is home napping, the neighbor who arrives and parks in the middle of the main street, and the couple of kids who defy the scorching sun and play football".

Some of the most special summer nights in Judit Neddermann's life have been at Palomares beach, in her hometown, Vilassar de Mar, during the main festival. The most memorable night of all is celebrated at the end of June with a popular sardine feast. “There are embers and everyone makes their own sardines, you have the drizzle of oil, garlic and parsley, and there is also burnt rum. People eat sitting on the beach with towels and sarongs, there is a concert of habaneras and the night says goodbye with a fireworks display. Everyone is happy and with that incipient early summer tan,” details the singer, and confesses: “I try to go every year, but sometimes concerts come up and I can't. It's one of the few nights that if a concert comes up, I feel bad, because I regret missing it.” 

For Care Santos, summer is not a time of year, it is a place: the beach of Santa Susanna in Malgrat de Mar. “This beach is the territory of my memory,” assures the writer. She started going there when she was little with her parents and siblings, who were teenagers. “I was a flat dweller, I was like a cat, and summer was absolute freedom and revelry. We arrived for Sant Joan and left for La Mercè: for me it was a paradise”.

There is a night in the life of actress and screenwriter Adriana Fuertes that she would love to turn into a film. It was summer and the inhabitants of Santa Margarita de Montbui had been excitedly talking for days about the visit they would receive from comedian Eugenio for the town's main festival. "I was little and I didn't really know who he was, but I have very clear memories of that night, of the people's joy and the sense of community, and of the smell of tobacco and grilled sardines. Back then we didn't need large infrastructures, the neighbors brought wooden chairs from home and in a moment a small theater had been set up. I remember the adults laughing at Eugenio's jokes, and the children playing in the background, and the pasodobles and the karaoke afterwards, where we sang Eva María se fue, buscando el sol en la playa".

Comedian Víctor Parrado loves to travel and one of the best summer nights he remembers was during a getaway last year to the city of Porto with his partner. “I like small cities more and more, walking through the alleys of the old town, going into shops… In Porto I was amazed by the Ribeira neighborhood and all the cellars next to the Douro. I remember a moment of having a delicious Porto wine, with background music, as dusk fell. You know those moments of… ‘Oh, how calm I am, how good I feel, I don't need anything else right now.’ Well, that’s how I was,” recalls the comedian.