First was the screen, huge. From there some kids were talking about the concert, on a street, in Catalan, languages are important to him. Then he came out. He stood still on the stage, clear, simple, a platform. Behind, the pink band. He in cream, suited, breathing as if to fit the deafening roar of the crowd, already surrendered. A few long seconds passed and then the band started to salsa and it seemed that his eyes, behind golden frame glasses, shone even more while La Mudanza played. The shouting rose, and the stadium danced smiling and rhythmic, all of it, with Callaíta and then with Pitorro de coco, introduced with a Puerto Rican cuatro solo. Organic sound for timeless songs that have pulsed in Latin memory for generations, tropical pop with Weltita, bolero in Turista, salsa again, unleashed trombones in Baile inolvidable choreographed with little lights coming from the cameras placed at the entrance and more salsa with Nuevayol with its dembow engine. Exciting in capital letters, goosebumps, everyone went crazy, only the concrete was static. Bad Bunny in Barcelona. It couldn’t have started better, seriously. The day was saying goodbye, the party was starting and the pride of being Latino shone brighter than the spotlights.
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That pride turned streetwise in La Casita, whipped by the reggaeton of Veldá, the Dominican dembow of Tití me preguntó, with Bad Bunny already in tracksuit, with Barça players like Lamine Yamal, Gavi, Balde or a strangely restrained Marc Giró who only smiled, probably overwhelmed. The stadium was tinted romantic pink for the sensual Si veo a tu mamá, in an unprecedented rhythmic frenzy, a hip shake that only the youth of the audience avoided turning into fractures. This part of the concert, with minimal distances between audience and star, saw the sky darken and gave prominence to artificial light, which without great displays only wrapped the rhythm and the carnal cadence of reggaeton in chromatic cellophane. The explosion of Voy a llevarte pa PR shook even the dead in the nearby cemetery, fireworks lit up the sky and the bass rumbled in the sky. Only some breaks prevented some collapses, as Me porto bonito, lifted the lid off several brains, which flew even more when Yo perreo sola featured Bad Gyal to better screw in the meaning of the song, which she finished alone with Dame. As if that wasn’t enough, among more twinkling lights in the stands, more fireworks, more smoke and more rhythm, Safaera or Café con ron were real hair-raisers.
The celebration continued wildly, because the concert was quite a big party with an uncontrollable joy, palpable both on the floor and in the stands, where the seats were useful on rare occasions. The audience freed themselves through dance, singing the songs, lyrics sung a thousand times, always imitated intonations, loose but intentional gesticulation, while Bad Bunny conducted that immense choir with that voice in which he emphasizes his nasal tone, a baritone who sings with a sought incorrectness, as a way to leave the shared lane to travel his own. The confidence of his movements, streetwise, as well as the rough tone of his diction, spoke of neighborhood to the crowd, of a closeness that a common language sung with another accent reflected different but close realities, establishing complicities that only occur with such depth when there are such cultural coincidences, when you listen to the cousin who emigrated and who now no longer speaks as he did when he left, but is still your cousin. That is an ace Bad Bunny has in his hand when he sings among us, when he managed to make the whole stadium feel a little Boricua, an extension of those Canary Islanders whose presence was accentuated in Puerto Rico in the 18th and 19th centuries. Yes, Bad Bunny is a bit like home.
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Likewise, the rhythms that played are their own rhythms, salsa and reggaeton, merengues and boleros, sounds we have heard from our elders, typical of popular festivals and in many cases, particularly reggaeton, foundations of a self-affirmation that has had to deal with the disdain of those same elders, who now, not without surprise, see how it coexists with styles they understand but cannot quite grasp the fit. All of this pulsed in the stadium, turned this Friday night into a cradle of encounters between music of back and forth that tie generations in some cases separated by a misunderstanding that Bad Bunny dissolved in his performance. And to continue with that crazy mixture, Mónaco played Charles Aznavour’s Hier encore, romantic and elegant, while trap and gummy basses pierced the melody and made the pylorus tremble. Yesterday, today and the day after tomorrow at the hand of an artist who has evolved reggaeton without losing the street essence and lust, to which he has added respect for what our elders were although with the spice of someone old enough to seduce. On the roof of La Casita he made it clear with La santa, the special song of the night: “don’t act like a saint, you love perreo.” The recognition of plena, a rhythm all drum from Puerto Rico, full throttle with the skins, Rayo de sol closed La Casita with Los Pleneros de la Cresta and Bad Bunny proclaiming “we are all Puerto Rican” in a stadium that roared its approval.
Far from getting tired, with almost two hours of perreo and shouting in their bodies, the audience stayed plugged in. Again on the central stage, naked just to give presence to Bad Bunny’s charisma, the concert faced the final burst with the tropical Ojitos lindos; El apagón with its explicit criticism of the island’s abuse, or a Debí tirar más fotos that was simply the climax. Joy, tradition, vindication ―with a video by Jacobo Morales, the actor from the short film that accompanied the album― hand in hand in a concert that was full in every sense. Music may not change the world, but it explains it very well.
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