The she-wolf, the crazy one, the betrayed one, the cyclist, the one who doesn’t cry, and especially, the one who earns a lot. All the Shakiras gathered last night in Madrid to inaugurate her first residency with a great technical and lighting display to give weight to the event that ends eight years of waiting by the Spanish public. New paths for big concerts and a vindication of Shakira as a great diva of the stage after three decades of resilience.
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The concert started with the last light of day amid the shouting of 55,000 people, many of them dressed for the occasion with sparkling skirts, pink hats, or violet wigs. A small carnival joined by the protagonist, who crossed the central area of the audience at the head of a long entourage dressed in what seemed to be space suits.
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The Colombian slowly climbed the last stairs letting herself be adored before La fuerte opened the evening accompanied by robotic steps in the first of the multiple choreographies of the show, which did not spare brilli-brilli matching the luminous bracelets, which were generously used.
The stadium erupted with joy when the Spanish flag appeared among the Latin banners with Girl like me, a syncopation that gave way to the first hit of the night: Las de la intuición, mixed with Estoy aquí, which made the newly built stands shake again, whose specific staggered arrangement facilitates the view.
Just in case, the already traditional giant screen allowed a good view of her face when she commented on the difference between the one she had when she left and the joy she now shows.
The revisiting of her relationship with Piqué surrounded by robotic Kens was not missing
The Colombian did not forget her rock past, when she sang in English songs like Don’t bother. A time she recalled by putting on the guitar to lead the riffs of Empire, just as she remembered her Lebanese roots by belly dancing in Sus ojos, released in a distant 1998, and showing images of her beginnings before performing Pies descalzos, sueños blancos with strength, almost rage.
Shakira, in full physical and vocal form, thus gathered strength for Te felicito, reggaeton with which she opened the revisiting of her relationship with Piqué surrounded by robotic Kens and pink hearts. Acróstico continued the cycle shortly after – with her children, Milan and Sasha, among the audience – in the lowest and most emotional moment of the night, where she recalled that her best moments, her motherhood, she had spent “here, in Spain,” without specifying in which city she lived then.
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Macondo Park, paradise of the multicolored selfie
Macondo Park opened its colorful doors almost an hour and a half late, while outside the venue workers were seen finishing the city designed for 50,000 people. The eight colored paths, like the golden path of Oz, soon filled with people spreading between curiosity and shelter to counteract the effects of an almost tropical heat, ideal to imagine the vicissitudes of an Aureliano Buendía who would stop in Villaverde Alto to live adventures on the border with Getafe. Flamenco, reggaeton, Guitarricadelafuente, and food stalls joined at Iberdrola Music to create this theme park where music replaces roller coasters and their endless lines. It’s not that there weren’t any, just that here they served to climb a green ziggurat crowned by a large inflatable she-wolf, the Club Loba. The Shakira museum soon filled with people, as did a library with few books and no readers, or the access to the floor, crowded by the audience willing to fight to be
in the front row. The forecast is that the nearly 600,000 people who will visit Macondo Park will leave income between 150 and 200 million in Madrid, figures in which the arrival of foreign visitors, whose spending will range between 500 and 800 euros per person, has a lot to do. Also, the programming of the 12 concerts on weekends is expected to generate good income among those who choose to go out for drinks. This will not be the case for the children gathered in Macondito, who along with the mostly female youth formed the bulk of the audience, who on this first day sought more to take tons of selfies than the cultural connection proclaimed by the artist from Barranquilla.
To recover, the stage turned into an underwater background with a sleeping mermaid who recovered thanks to the reggaeton of Copa vacía and the vallenato La bicicleta, which demonstrated its ability to encourage dancing. Everything went upwards from then on thanks to the arsenal of transversal hits by the Colombian that have managed to transcend differences to reach a kind of playful-festive universality, like Coca Cola.
This is the case of La tortura or Hip’s don’t lie, which once again got the audience on their feet while the protagonist called Madrid to dance from the catwalk that protruded in the middle of the stage. The same happened with Addicted to you or Loca, flames that fueled the musical crescendo of the evening where Chantaje was not missing, converted from reggaeton to salsa with the approval of the audience.
The artist also did not miss the chance to send a few messages about female power and the importance of self-esteem, as she stated before grabbing an American bar while singing that “being single is great.”
A shower of bills while singing ‘Pa tipos como tú’ closed the night in style
Te dejo Madrid could not be missing, where she played the harmonica after explaining the origin of a song that talks about an emotional disappointment, hard to guess given the energy she overflows. But it was overshadowed by Suerte (Whenever, Wherever), the beginning of the end in which the artist includes the two songs she composed for two World Cups. Dai Dai, with a reminder of the Spanish team’s victory, and Waka Waka, with that children’s dance that tried (unsuccessfully) to leave behind that of Macarena. The piece co-written with Jorge Drexler delighted the many boys and girls present last night in a square that filled with vivid, very vivid colors, to give the first farewell.
Because the encores were missing, and with them the appearance of a giant she-wolf, several meters tall, that acted as a totem in Loba, a song chosen by the artist to assert herself as a powerful woman while playing with her highest tones. The same, although with much more salt, is talked about in Pa tipos como tú, the session with Bizarrap that closed the night in style. A shower of bills fell on the stage while the bold reproaches to Piqué sounded, a reminder that now Shakira no longer cries, but earns.
