The most massive concerts of the Mercè festivities this year will not take place on Avenida Maria Cristina, next to Plaza Espanya, but in the Zona Universitaria, on Calle Menéndez Pelayo. It was announced this Tuesday by the Commissioner for Culture and Creative Industries, the socialist Xavier Marcé, at the presentation by Mayor Jaume Collboni of the poster for the upcoming patron saint festivities of Barcelona, ??in this edition signed by cartoonist and illustrator Chamo San, and by the corresponding preacher, a role that this year will be assumed by the writer Najat el Hachmi.
The Commissioner for Culture pointed out that the transfer of recitals organized by various radio stations that are very popular among young people mainly responds to mobility issues. Barça will play next season at the Olímpic, and the truth is that it is not a plan to further overload the surroundings of Montjuïc.
“In the University Zone, on Menéndez Pelayo street – the commissioner added -, we have an already enabled space where they used to park buses. In addition, there we will not have problems with the neighbors. Our will is to continue decentralizing the Mercè festivities”. We’ll see what the people who live around the new location say when the concerts finish and the kids start to scatter here and there.
In any case, no one is aware that the stages on Avenida Maria Cristina have been dying of success for a few years now. In the last edition, after the festive performances, a young man was stabbed to death, half a thousand people who did not want to end the partying confronted the police, a few assaulted a delicatessen and took several hams…
And the year before, the place became the setting for the biggest mega-bottleneck ever seen in this city, and without the need to stage a concert! At that time, the restrictions of the pandemic were still in force… Unfortunately, those large bottles resulted in numerous acts of vandalism.
The truth is that party after party the enclave gradually became a symbol for a whole generation of Barcelonans. These concerts by so many artists so popular among teenagers and very unknown among adults constitute the last party of the summer or, depending on how you look at it, the first of the course.
You couldn’t miss it, you couldn’t go back to class without a good bag of war stories about it. What always happens in the end in this type of celebration is that sooner or later they also end up attracting a much less civic and much more disturbing public. It also happened on the large esplanade of the Fòrum.
Other changes of location will be that of the Mercè Arts de Carrer, which goes from the Ciutadella park to the Estació del Nord and some corners of the Eixample superblock. This year the Plaza Reial will once again host concerts. In addition, the Pasaje dels Til·lers in Ciutadella will host the Fira Terra i Gust gastronomic contest. The Grec theater, the Pla i Armengol gardens, the Plaza Mayor in Nou Barris, Avenida de la Catedral, Bogatell beach, Rambla del Raval… will repeat the role… The budget for the sarao is around 4.1 million euros, more or less the same as last year.
The guest city of this Mercè will be Kíiv. The Ukrainians are very excited and are already finalizing their gift to Barcelona, ??two giants, Vladimir and Olga, who will be unveiled at the traditional Toc d’inici this year. Chileans will also be protagonists of these festivities, in order to remember President Salvador Allende.
The act officiating by the mayor Collboni in La Virreina also served to reveal the poster for these festivities and the identity of its preacher. The bet of the cartoonist and illustrator Chamo San is the least risky. Year after year the designated artists, especially when they really think about it and skip some convention, tend to suffer criticism that is not voracious. No wonder the author was nervous. Something will smell.
Because San gives us a large tower so vertical that it actually constitutes a bunch of posters. A castle crowded with many anonymous faces that are somehow familiar, faces typical of these festivities, and also others that are part of Barcelona’s popular culture… some recognized, some forgotten…
In this case, we are talking about Ocaña, Miguel Gallardo, Teresa Pàmies, Margarita Xirgu, Enric Castan, Pinotxo, Ramón Casas, Peret, Bernardo Cortés… A couple of terms ago, shortly after the death of the last of those mentioned, the government of Mayor Ada Colau assured that it would do something to preserve the memory of the Barceloneta singer-songwriter. Last term he promised to hang a plaque in his memory. But he never did. In any case, emphasize that the selection of personalities arranged in this poster responds solely to the author’s criteria. Everyone says that in the City Council they did not tell him who he had to put.
And on top of this castle, which in a certain way also tries to repair certain injustices, stands in black and white. Surely more than one will consider it practically an insult. But this black and white does nothing other than pay homage to Barcelona’s underground cultural tradition, a rogue and urban tradition that is somewhat run down, which once gave life to such alternative and badass characters like Makoki and Makinavaja. And why did they draw these characters in black and white? Well, because there was neither money nor time to color.
Mayor Collboni also announced the name of the next preacher, the writer, philologist, mediator and, among other things, columnist, Najat el Hachmi. Collboni himself proposed her because in a certain way this woman is a sign that the very different cultural traditions can glimpse meeting points without renouncing their essences, and these messages in favor of understanding are always timely.
El Hachmi said that he is very excited about the commission, that he did not hesitate to accept it, that he still does not know what he will say at the Saló de Cent. “So many things can be said about Barcelona, ??it is such a literary city…”. Many also end up criticizing the town criers without hesitation.
