This has certainly been a crazy year, in which I’ve undergone a job promotion (and its corresponding prior public contest), I’ve started living with perhaps the best person I could ever share my life with, I’ve quit the language school I had been 13 years working for, I’ve visited the Azores (among other places) and Porto (twice!) and I’ve been to concerts. Fewer than I would’ve wanted to. As usual, not all the ones I’ve been to I’ve written about. Days have 24 hours as they used to, yes, but life changes. So do one’s habits. And one’s priorities. And one’s plans for the (near) future. If this year the number of concerts has decreased considerably as compared to last year’s, this number will decrease even more with my leaving for the US in a research stay from Feb to May, and perhaps with one more stay in Chile (yet to be confirmed). What is certain is that my love of (live) music will never disappear even if the circumstances don’t allow me to go there and cry and shiver and feel moved with it. Without further ado, and in chronological order, here is my top of concerts 2018 gave me.
1. Roger Waters – 14/4/18, Palau Sant Jordi.
If you keep on talking about a show for two months, it’s because that show was forking amazeballs.
2. Editors – 26/4/18, Razzmatazz
Tom Smith stole my heart the first time I saw him live. He did it again last April.
3. Vetusta Morla – 18/5/18, Palau Sant Jordi.
Pucho is the friggin’ boss on stage. There’s no denying.
4. Jane Birkin – 2/6/18, Primavera Sound
Not knowing any of one’s songs but one and getting to be moved by her elegance, savoir faire and voice is what Jane Birkin got to do to me last June. Her daughter was fantastic, but the original genes won over the derivates this time.
5. Lorde – 2/6/18, Primavera Sound
Seeing a true artist grow on stage is a privilege. Seeing Lorde own it is priceless.
6. Joan Dausà – 13/7/18, Cruïlla
Not sure if I was pmed or what, but Joan Dausà made me cry at 6pm in the sunshine. Take that.
7. Ramon Mirabet – 14/4/18, Cruïlla
Learning about Mirabet’s life makes you understand even better that what he does on stage is just him and nothing else. (vídeo d’un altre concert)
8. The Soft Moon – 13/10/18, Apolo 2.
Needing so badly to see someone banging drums and whatever he has nearby can’t be a good sign, but that’s what I needed and that’s what I found.
9. Marlango – 28/11/18, Sala BARTS.
That I love Leonor Watling is no secret, and that she’s the reason why I think that a good vocalist does the trick in certain bands goes without saying. And of course, you need that one song, ‘Dime que llegaremos lejos’ that makes you go and see them for the third time in your life and never have enough.
MMAR's RAMM 