Few imagined on December 30, with their children on their necks to enjoy a Zoo concert for the whole family, that the Gandia group, the most powerful on the Valencian music scene, would announce their goodbye a week later. to the stages. More than one drama has been experienced in the last few hours in the homes when those parents, mourning the loss of the greatest reference in recent years, have announced the news to the new generations. And Zoo will leave the stage with a 10-concert tour and opens an uncertain panorama in music in Valencian, since its departure joins those recently announced by Xavi Sarrià (former singer of Obrint Pas), El Diluvi, Smoking Souls , Tardor or the singer-songwriter Rafa Xambó. Too many goodbyes together.
“The Valencian music scene is affected and depressed because Zoo had been a priceless injection of self-esteem: its success beyond regional and linguistic borders has broken barriers that seemed insurmountable and opened up very high expectations,” explains music critic Josep Vicent Frechina. And not only because of the quality of their musical proposal, he comments, “but because of the drag effect they had with the public and from which many other groups benefited.” “Their withdrawal entails a significant artistic and emotional decapitalization for the Valencian music scene, but they leave it with a consolidated and expectant public to quickly adopt possible replacements.”
The Zoo team explains to La Vanguardia the two reasons that have led the group to say goodbye. On the one hand, “the vital moment”, especially that of its leader, Panxo, “after 10 years of tours and concerts with everything that entails. Now he needs to focus on his life.” Although it may seem contradictory, at a critical moment and only a year after filling the WiZink Center in Madrid and the Palau Sant Jordi in Barcelona, ??the group, explained from their communications department, wanted to avoid “inertia, stretching the gum and fall into the conformism of a formula for success.” As they said in their first song – Estiu, which launched them to stardom with more than seven and a half million views – “no estem fent merda facilona, ??ací fem hymnes (we are not doing easy shit, here we make hymns), and that self-demand wears .
Others who announced their “temporary stop” a few months ago are El Diluvi, a group that created songs/hymns like Alegria or I tu, sols tu. Its singer and bandurria, Flora Sempere, explains her reasons to this newspaper: “We have been on the road for a long time [more than 12 years], touring and preparing concerts. “There is a lot of invisible work.” Sempere points out that, in the case of Zoo, they have been able to make a living from the group, but the majority of bands that play in Valencian have not and need to make it compatible with other jobs. She, for example, is a teacher.
The El Diluvi singer adds that, “honestly, political times are not very encouraging when the Minister of Culture, just for the simple fact of singing in Valencian, already believes that you are a Pan-Catalanist.” “Unfortunately, it is difficult to create culture in our language,” he comments. However, he does not close the door to returning, in other formats, with “shorter tours that allow us to make the stages compatible with other projects, jobs and family.”
The singer-songwriter and secretary of the Ovidi Montllor musician collective, Pau Alabajos, admits “a closing of the generational cycle” after the decision of many groups to stop “due to fatigue and precariousness accumulated after years of performing.” He admits that without that pull of big bands it will be difficult to attract the public, but he remembers that there were already “moments of vertigo” with the disappearance of Obrint Pas, La Gossa Sorda, Orxata or Aspencat.
“History tells us that there will be replacements and that these goodbyes will serve to diversify the scene and oxygenate it.” He points out that they are “absolute references and leave a big hole,” but he is convinced that, “as in any crisis, opportunities will be generated for other groups to demonstrate their quality.”
In this sense, Alabajos points out that in 2023, more singles than albums will have been published in Valencian, which shows that there are other generations that are doing new things and opting for formulas that connect with this new audience. In this sense, Joan Gregori Maria, from the production company Prop 21, points out that in Catalonia groups with more urban and Latin rhythms are already emerging that connect with this new audience that surely have a presence in the future of music in Valencian. Despite the difficulties, he is optimistic and believes that “the circuit exists, the public is loyal and soon new groups will break out and take over.”
