Enrique Bunbury, the foreign And yet, a prophet in his own land, he scored his last goal at the Romareda on Saturday, with a concert that attracted nearly 30,000 people. A final point for his tour and also for the Zaragoza stadium, which, starting this Monday, will begin to be demolished to build a new football field.
“Where better to close these 11 shows “What are the only ones in the immortal city?”, asked Bunbury about Saturday night’s concert in Zaragoza, visibly happy to be at home and with the stage almost full. “What an immense pleasure to be here, knowing that this place will not be the same from Monday onwards,” he said after singing his Action Man (Possible2020) and wake up, almost from the first title, Our worlds do not obey maps (Greta Garbo, 2023), the fury and fervor of her parish.
“Bunbury is the best, his voice breaks barriers, and the lyrics of his songs transport me to another place,” confessed Meritxell, who came from Cornellá, Barcelona, to see the concert. Or Raquel, from Córdoba, and César, from Logroño, who have followed the artist since the early nineties and sing, without complexes, one of the songs. From further away, fans from Colombia and Mexico, who repeat the concert after seeing him at the Wizink in Madrid, but with the added bonus that Zaragoza is the birthplace of the artist. “For us it is a dream to see him in his homeland,” they explained, “and on a tour as special for him as this one, it is a luxury to see a dedicated and happy Enrique.”
Bunbury arrived in Zaragoza with the wind in his favour. Or to be precise, with the cierzo, which blew chillingly on a night that, despite the drop in temperature after the storms in the early afternoon, did not cool the spirits and excitement of the public. The singer performed the highlights of the repertoire, with songs such as Bet on Rock and Rollthe Bunburian version of the defunct Zaragozans Más Birras, now in the news thanks to an award-winning film Blue Star by Javier Macipe, which unleashed the complicity of Zaragoza, or as when the first chords of Abroadchanted by everyone. The almost relic song was also played Between two lands from his time in Héroes del Silencio, an unexpected gift that does not usually appear in his repertoire since he has been sailing solo. And the rest, not because it has been repeated, nor already sung (the artist followed exactly the same script as in the shows (previous) the repertoire stopped exciting. La Romareda lived its great and last night, as if Real Zaragoza had been promoted to First Division.
Dressed in a black suit and a red scarf, with sunglasses first, and a hat cowboy Afterwards, Bunbury not only did not disappoint, but he dazzled even the most experienced. Almost all the audience wore T-shirts with the artist’s name, from his first band Héroes del Silencio, or in strict black like him, except for the touches of silver and red and the flashes of rings and guitar. The audience’s voices merged with the singer every time he encouraged them to sing along to his lyrics. And as impeccable support, Los Santos inocentes, a band that has accompanied him on this tour with the addition of Erin Memento, an artist of present and promising future, on the chorus, and classics like the drummer Ramón Gacías, already the most veteran of this long history because he has been accompanying Bunbury on the turntables all his life. The Reverend Jorge Rebenaque on keyboards, Quino Bejar on percussion, Robert Castellano on bass and Alvaro Suite and Jordi Mena on guitar, enriched Bunbury’s voice with their notes, which was in top form despite everything. “Two years ago I thought this would never happen again,” the artist confessed, recalling his health problems. “You can never swear that it will be your last concert, but we live each one as if it were.”
A magical goodbye
And in a way, it is. At least for the old Romareda, which after 67 years of being the field of victories, defeats and great events in the fourth largest city in Spain, is saying goodbye. That is why Bunbury’s concert ended this magical night with fireworks. On Monday, instead of dancing and singing, it will be taken to the pickaxe. The demolition of the stadium will begin in the area of the south goal, just in front of where Bunbury’s stage was set up this Saturday. That is why, for the artist, who had already spent the previous week in Zaragoza with family and friends, this was not only his last concert before locking himself away to record his new album this summer.
“Bunbury had not set foot in the Romareda for seven years,” recalls another of the city’s veterans, the Radio Zaragoza-SER announcer and music expert Miguel Mena, who met the very young Enrique when he went to the radio station to give him his demos. The first concert, with Héroes, in the stadium was in 1986 to support Franco Batiatto and Último de la fila, he points out. Years later, in 1991, they were already headlining a concert by legendary Aragonese groups such as Las Novias or Niños del Brasil and in 2007, also in the Romareda, the long-awaited reunion of Héroes del Silencio took place, who by then had already disbanded.
“La Romareda,” emphasizes the Zaragoza supporter and intellectual Pepe Melero, “is the place of our dreams.” And on Saturday it was. The wandering Aragonese, who “left his home behind” as he says in Cradle of Cainyes, he wanted to return, and he did so through the main door, the same one that is now closing on the stadium forever.