A big hug and see you soon, Fernando!

So that was it. While we were immerged in this worldly institutional whirl, you came to remind us that the world keeps going round basically on its own. Moves that come even to our small but yet great unesquian island. The day came, and as scheduled you left for a new stage in your life, to La Habana.

This kind of life we chose to live presents us with opportunities for extraordinary meetings, but it also implies, from time to time, deeply felt farewells. There is no one without the other. With time one gets used to it and develops a sort of shield. Also with time one improves one’s ability to differentiate important people from simple passers-by. Yet no shield can contain what one feels when a true friend leaves, especially when one has a crystal heart. Fernando, thanks for knowing how to listen as good as you know how to talk. Thanks for sharing so many interesting things with me. Thanks for helping me in my effort to see beyond myself. And thanks for sharing your enormous sense of humor, which is no other thing than a supreme form of intelligence. Thanks for being both a gentleman and a wise person. And thanks for allowing me to call you a friend.

I will miss you, compay! But well, we will meet again sooner than later, with a mojito if possible, be it travelling from the Old Europe or from somewhere else. I wish you all the best for the new life you begin, from which I hope to be a distant but yet present part. Or future part. Well, it was understood, wasn’t it?

PS: the most sentimental part I leave it, if you allow me, to someone from Uruguay, Mr. Jaime Roos.

Rest in peace, Negra, and many thanks!!!

Many thanks for your company, many thanks for leading us through the darkest times, many thanks for so many things.

U2 in Paris

Friday, five in the afternoon. Just tidying up a couple of things before going home for a long weekend. Tomorrow is my birthday and Tuesday is a holiday. I log on facebook. My friend Fernanda has an unequivocal status message: “I have spare tickets for U2 concerts in Paris, call me at XX.XX.XX.XX.XX”. I call her immediately.

Two hours later I have to tickets for the U2 concert in Paris on Sunday 12. This is an unexpected, pleasant and promising birthday present. I have been a U2 fan since I discovered them many years ago when they released “The Joshua Tree”, the album of their international consecration. I saw them live in two occasions: at Palau Sant Jordi in Barcelona, 1992, during their Zoo Tv Tour, when they trotted the world with a stage full of old Trabants and TV screens; and in Cork, Ireland, 2003, by the end of the Zooropa Tour, when they expanded the stage to fit big stadiums.

Since then I heard them only on their records. Now it is the “360º Tour”, a show with an open stage that can be seen all around. This will not disappoint me, on the contrary it will remind me the extraordinary sensations one can live in such a show.

It was definitely worth it. These guys are criticized for their use of pre-recorded sound, and for hiding their music behind screens and ostentatious technology. What can I say… The best live music I ever saw was by Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, that is best quality music and nothing else. But U2 are much more than technology. A career longer than 30 years made them an undisputable reference of contemporary music.

That is what this concert is all about. A visit through my thirtysome. Songs from the new album, “Breathe”, “No line on the horizon”, “Magnificient”, or “I’ll go crazy tonight” where Larry Mullen Junior plays a Djembé!!! Songs from the most recent records such as “Beautiful day” or “Vertigo”, classics that leave me breathless and close to tears like “I still haven’t found what I’m looking for”… And they can still astonish me completely: a version of another new song, “Unknown caller”, where you can follow the words through the screens; halfway through the concert they use their long repertoire and play “The unforgettable fire”, which I had never heard live.

U2 has been on the first line for so long because they manage to adapt to the evolution of times, both to the music and to the technology. Meanwhile they stayed committed to a number of worldwide social causes, in a move that can be subject to criticism –as for instance the social responsibility of big corporations- but is yet remarkable and most welcome in many cases, since it raises the awareness about certain causes to people with little exposure to them. The stage goes green for the revolution in Iran while we hear “Sunday bloody Sunday”. And for once Bono remains silent while Desmond Tutu gives a speech about development in Africa, while I can see the coming of the red colours of my favourite song, “Where the streets have no name”. By the end of the concert Bono revisits the effect of the lighters and candles in a dark stadium, by asking the people to use their phones and cameras while we hear another classic, “With or without you”.

The concert finishes with a new song that in my opinion will be a classic: “Moment of surrender”. Yes, I do surrender. Great concert, great sensations, I could not have had a better birthday present.

In memoriam: Michael Jackson

Thursday evening. I get home, tired after a long working day which I finished with a good swim. One of those when you just enter home and land on the bed. Nonetheless I do not want to sleep without a bit of music. Today I feel for a classic: the last four songs of “Dark Side of the Moon”, by Pink Floyd, a masterpiece of contemporary music. One of those to listen to only from time to time, yet always enjoyable.

I listen lying on my bed, through the iphone headphones. It is the last tunes and the incidental sounds of the very end. A voice says “there is no dark side of the moon, really…” with a heart beating in the background, presumably the same one you can hear at the beginning of the record. Right at this moment, the end of the record, a text message comes in. A good friend says: “Michael Jackson is dead. :(”. Is that so? Oh… Tomorrow will be another day.

Next morning news is all over. Which is logical, given his worldwide popularity. His death came as an unexpected surprise, yet I do not feel particularly sad. I was never his fan, and I always found excessive to devote so much attention to someone who lived in his own amusement park, where he was slowly whitening while facing very serious accusations of child molestation. I found it excessive even if I could understand the reasons behind it.

However, I must acknowledge that Michael Jacksons' decease is the death of a symbol of the last quarter of the XXth century, an artist with a unique impact in the world of music, where he introduced his original fusion of styles, from rock to disco through pop and soul; also for his revolutionary innovations in dance, notably his moon walk. And most of all for being the first Afro-American artist who broke the glass wall and became a world icon for all races alike.

Michael Jackson brings me back to my childhood. I was barely nine years old when the mythical “Thriller” was released. When video clips had just appeared and were slowly making their way in terms of music promotion, Jacko released fifteen minutes of a real movie that kept us all glued to our seats in amazement, in a move that changed the genre forever. This is the Michael Jackson I will remember, the one I feel a part of my cultural background; the member of the Jackson five, the fresh creative man of the first half of the eighties. Before success, popularity and a very complicated history turned him into a pathetic character. Someone who could afford anything he liked but could never be really happy, to the point of turning his life into a circus that will probably continue after his death.

May he rest, finally, in peace.