CULTURE SPAIN: KYLIE MINOGUE, BON JOVI, ROGER WATERS IN BARCELONA

After a recent Post about some concerts in Barcelona, I thought that I should give advance warning of some more concerts in Spain that are coming up soon – that may be of interest to you.  Two of them are of particular interest to me.

The first concerns Roger Waters of Pink Floyd who, on the 25th and 26th of March 2011 will be playing in Madrid and then, on the 29th March 2011 he will be at Barcelona. 

Of course, even I know Roger Waters from Pink Floyd!  In fact, ‘The Dark Side of the Moon’ has to be one of the greatest albums of modern times and I can remember playing it to excess years ago.  I still have the LP and in my more maudlin moments put it on.  Evidently, the ‘The Dark Side of the Moon’ is the world’s second best-selling album, and the United States’ 21st best-selling album of all time.  That alone makes any more mention of Roger Waters superfluous – with the chance of seeing Roger Waters in Barcelona being something, almost by definition, worth attending.

Meanwhile, Kylie Minogue will be performing at the Palau Sant Jordi in Barcelona on the 12^th March 2011.  Kylie has sold over 60 million albums and, so my wife tells me, transformed herself from the ‘girl next door’ into a full on sex goddess.  Of this, I know little but the image here of Kylie Minogue seems to bear this out!  

In fact, since living permanently in Spain, as a family, we only ever listen to Spanish radio stations despite there being some excellent English language radio stations throughout Spain.  This has meant that we have had a great opportunity to find out what the Spanish listen to.  Some of their pop music is really terrific and I should have thought would transfer well onto the English language music scene.

One band that is justifiably popular amongst the Spanish is Fiti&Fitipaldis.  Their music is played a lot on Spanish radio stations and it reminds me, distantly, of Dire Straits.  They were formed in 1998 and play a combination of rock, blues and soul.  Certainly, the best of their music is really catchy and you may want to take the opportunity (I may go myself) of trying to catch Fiti&Fitipaldis when they play at Barcelona on the 11^th December and at Madrid on the 30^th December 2010.

Finally, Bon Jovi will be playing at the Barcelona Olympic Stadium on Wednesday, 27.07.2011  To my shame(?) I know little about Bon Jovi – but I gather that they are a seriously ‘big’ American rock band.  If this is the case, then I suspect that getting tickets early for Bon Jovi in Barcelona may be essential.

I would hope that this information about concerts in Spain bears out that living in Spain as an English speaker does not mean that you lose all contact with what is happening in our own culture. 

That said, to some extent, I have moved away from my native culture – even if for a few years.  This has been deliberate, as both my wife and I have felt that to get the maximum out of living in a foreign country we needed to concentrate fully upon the country concerned and its own culture. 

So, for example, we have never had satelitte TV.  This is a rare omission on the part of any English speaker in Spain, where most non-Spanish owned homes can be identified quite simply by the size of their satelitte dish (usually enormous)!

Certainly, if I was to provide advice to you, if you are thinking of living in Spain, I would probably suggest that, for the first six months or so, you do not get satelitte TV.  I think, all too easily, you can spend all your time looking back ‘over your shoulder’ at the country that you have come from – rather than committing to Spain and the very different (and sometimes challenging) culture of Spain.

Of course, there is a balance to be maintained between the extremes of trying to immerse yourself in Spanish life and the culture of Spain itself- and keeping up with the theatre of your old life.  That, needless to say, is always going to be important to you but should not rule your existence here. 

It is not something that is always easy to get right!

However, I am sure that an obsession with your ‘old country’, when living in Spain permanently, can be damaging.  Indeed, it can lead to a somewhat schizophrenic existence – where you can end up not really knowing where ‘home’ is…

RELEVANT INFO:  Buy tickets for concerts in Spain