Seven minutes passed on Sunday, November 24, 2024 when Mutant Children ceased to exist. At that moment the last chord of the group sounded in their last concert and the Mutants went from the stage to history. In his native Granada. Mutant Children, solid until then, passed to another state, that of memory. It was the last time they played their songs live, recalled Juan Alberto, the voice of the group. “We will never sing these songs live again. They will only live when you sing or listen to them. Better sing them, that will make them even more alive.” In a long concert full of emotion in which melancholy barely had a place, Ninos Mutantes said goodbye with 30 songs that represented 30 years of music, more than 1,000 concerts and around 150 of their own songs.
The last concert in Granada, where the group has played four farewell nights in two consecutive weekends, had a 100% mutant audience. “Those of the last day are more mutant than us,” Juan Alberto commented to this newspaper days before. The 800 tickets for this final screening at the CajaGranada Theater were sold out on December 11, 2023, almost a year ago and just after the announcement of the group’s farewell. And to make the concert as complete as possible – not the easiest –, Juan Alberto, Migue Haro, Andrés López and Nani Castañeda, accompanied by a fifth mutant, the young Toni Jiménez who, at 24 years old, is younger than himself. group, decided to offer the history of their group. The repertoire was that, the history of the group and not just a list of their greatest hits. For this reason, perhaps, the beginning was not easy, with four or five songs from the group’s first years as The last time, Isabelita o Katherine.
After that brief start for mutants of special pedigree, the concert was opened to everyone, regardless of time or degree of loyalty. Words for Julyfrom 2020 and a beautiful song, triggered joy. Yes, because despite being the last, the group had set out to have a great night of music, not tears. The Mutants endured the pull as if this Saturday night and this theater were not the final season. Surely they were suffering, but they didn’t let it show. The show took place from a setlist originally designed by Andrés López, guitar, and perhaps the most transparent with his bad time, with the most beloved songs for the group and the public. There was no lack wandering, Of course, the song that without them expressly seeking it settled them, everything is going to change o sleepless nights. And so on up to thirty.
As there was no lack of their Pixies-style version of how I love youthe song that Manuel Alejandro wrote for Rocío Jurado and that Raphael also performed. We must recognize the courage of Ninos Mutantes to include that song in their repertoire, the first time was in Zamora in 2007. There were then two possibilities: that complaints would rain down on them or that their audience would take the floor and sing it with them. The second thing happened and the song has lived with them ever since. And so, as the artists wanted, the concert went on reliving everything played in the last three decades. There was pop, rock, sparks of psychedelia, a central acoustic moment, songs against capital, pop lullabies for their children,… In short, the entire mutant universe distilled in three hours.
Against custom, and against what could be imagined, Mutant Children wanted to say goodbye with a function exclusively theirs. Few concerts are now done without collaborations and even fewer are those of the great moments. But as Juan Alberto explained, the band expressly renounced that type of farewell and that this last function was shared. The spigot of melancholy had just two necessary leaks during the night: a video review of the band and the appearance on stage in some songs of those who had been important to the band. Those were the collaborations: bringing ex-mutants on stage.
And so, time passed, 170 minutes exactly from the entrance on stage until the last note sounded, with the audience engaged and the group feeling that the end was coming. And it arrived. In the penultimate song, NM, the song that portrays them, Juan Alberto recognized, and that begins like this: “When everything is over once and for all and there is no need to hide it, I will tell you our truth. There is a reason to follow, an order to execute, a mission to complete”. And they have come this far because they have no reason to continue and no mission to complete since, in reality, they have completed it. Mutant Children turn off the light convinced, among other reasons, that it is impossible for them to do anything better than what they have already done. The separation – musical, not personal, they insist – does not even require a final distribution of the loot or common property. As this newspaper was told, the prizes have been distributed equally and, without having decided, the inheritance has been distributed during his lifetime. Everyone has their pair or three of statuettes received over the years. There are no material accounts to settle.
and with The Voice, the last song, was finally undone by Mutant Children. For history they will continue to be Juan Alberto Mutante, Migue Mutante, Andrés Mutante and Nani Mutante, losing their original surname, but they will no longer sing on stage. All that remains is to resort to what those who saw them say about them, to look for their recordings or to listen to past albums. On Saturday night, in Granada, their city, what they announced almost a year ago happened. They say goodbye so, they say, they won’t return. And they show no doubt. However, the rehearsal room is not dismantled. To continue playing, together or separately, or so that grief does not devastate them even more while they take out their instruments and their gear after this final gang, the room remains operational. But all that remains of Mutant Children is their perfume, the trace of their passage. A step that, Juan Alberto summarizes, “has been much more than making songs, we have made as much music as laughter. “We have lived together.” And his followers have perceived it that way.