That summer in the 1980s when Bob Marley, Lou Reed, and the Ramones set Spain ablaze: "Lou Reed got into a fight with his crew on the bus for bringing him here."
It's the summer of 1980, and Spain's fledgling democracy is trying to take its first steps. Just a few weeks ago, Felipe González's PSOE (Spanish Socialist Workers' Party) attempted to overthrow Adolfo Suárez's government with a vote of no confidence, which the president managed to overcome. The effects of the second oil crisis are being felt in the pockets of many Spanish households. Jordi Pujol has just become the first president of the Generalitat of Catalonia , to the astonishment of Catalan socialism. On television, radio, and in newspapers, the murder of the Marquises of Urquijo provides its dose of crime coverage. Images of their riddled bodies in bed and the interior of their luxurious villa in Somosaguas are on every imaginable front page.
In this political and social concoction, the first cultural scenes born in democracy began to emerge. The concept of the urban tribe took root in our country. The hedonistic message of the Madrid Movida began to be felt in the capital's nights. Pedro Almodóvar amplified the phenomenon with the nighttime revelry of Carmen Maura, Alaska, and Eva Siva in Pepi, Luci, Bom, and Other Girls Like That —who could escape that golden shower scene in a country that, five years earlier, barely tolerated a woman's breasts pointing out from the screen at the audience? In Barcelona, a punk and hardcore scene grew, shouting its contempt for its newly elected president. From the United States and Great Britain, as a condiment, came the sounds of rock, punk, and new wave ... And one man was determined that the Spanish people could hear them. And not through a record player or a cassette player. In the most rigorous live performance.
"Fuck, I don't know how much I'll remember from those years, they were so hard," says Gay Mercader, the great music promoter of the early years of democracy in our country, on the other end of the phone from a Catalan farmhouse where he lives retired. He was the one who had brought the Rolling Stones to Barcelona in 1976 —almost like an inauguration of new times after Franco's death—to celebrate the first massive rock concert in Spain. And the summer of 1980 was to be the final straw: Lou Reed , the great cursed star of the moment, would play at the Moscardó Stadium in Madrid; Bob Marley , the undisputed king of reggae, was to repeat in the capital and in Barcelona, and The Ramones were to make their Spanish debut at the PSUC party in Barcelona.
Three international stars to inaugurate these new times. Three international stars to set a country ablaze. Almost literally. Because the three concerts ended up becoming memorable events for many of those present, but also a series of pitched battles, smashed cars, stage assaults ... And this is nothing more than the memory, more or less vague, depending on those involved, of all of them.
June 20, 1980Traffic in Madrid was in chaos—it wouldn't surprise anyone now—due to a transport strike. In the Usera neighborhood, thousands of people, with a few beers and no less substances in their systems, awaited Lou Reed's appearance outside the Román Valero Stadium, known to everyone as the Moscardó Stadium. The Brooklyn singer had arrived just before the show was supposed to start, but the sound system was still wandering around the Legazpi area, on the other side of the Manzanares River. Minutes passed, an hour passed, and the crowd was still waiting for someone to appear on stage. But until almost two hours after the scheduled time, nothing happened. First anger, and the show hadn't even started.
"Lou Reed was a son of a bitch, a bitter man. Because having talent doesn't mean not being a son of a bitch. I never even got to say hello to him, and I put on all his concerts here. The bastard was looking for anything he could find to put on a show, and that day he was pissed off because nothing was going as expected," says Gay Mercader, present near the dressing room when the singer finally decided to go on stage to play his songs. That was the year of Growing Up in Public , but, according to chronicles of the time, at the start of the concert he played Sweet Jane, I'm Waiting for the Man, Vicious, Walk on the Wild Side ... A good number of his legendary songs. Until an object—still unidentified 45 years later—flies towards the stage. The legend—which in this case is almost gospel—says that the object is a coin, a lighter, a can... and then Lou Reed disappears from the stage. "He left furious, said he would never get up there again. "What I was told is that later on the bus he started hitting the people who had booked his European tour for bringing him here, " the concert promoter points out.
After that, Lou Reed doesn't reappear, and the sound technicians begin to clean up the stage. With tempers already running high due to the delayed start of the concert, the Moscardó turns into a pitched battle: spectators begin to invade the stage, destroying everything on it, taking whatever they can, and getting into fights among themselves. The police officers are unable to contain this angry mob and end up giving up. Because even before the show started, they'd had trouble controlling the singer's fans who were trying to sneak into the venue without a ticket. "That was one of the scariest days I've had in my career. Don't fuck with me, the police really should have intervened. I was right there next to the stage and all I heard was light bulbs exploding on the floor, I saw people carrying spotlights, instruments, microphone stands... They took everything, it was a robbery like you see in the movies," explains Mercader.
The chaos inside the stadium eventually spilled onto the streets of the Usera neighborhood. Spectators were carrying all kinds of equipment, cars with smashed windows, trash cans and benches were torn up, people milled about in the streets, and fights broke out on every corner. A few hours later, the police intercepted a Lou Reed fan with his drum kit in Plaza de Castilla, on the other side of the city . The promoter decided to sue the singer for breach of contract, but the lawsuit was unsuccessful. The losses, according to the press, ranged between five and ten million pesetas. "I lost a fortune. I won't tell you how much because I don't remember exactly, but a fortune. Insurance companies also have the job of not paying you anything," explains Gay Mercader, who decided not to refund ticket money to those who had come. "People have never wanted to pay for music; they think a concert like that is free, and I had nothing to give them back for that," the promoter replies on the phone.
Beyond the now almost epic story dubbed The Fly Mutiny that followed Lou Reed's concert in Madrid, the artist's departure and the events that followed had their consequences. Gay Mercader had scheduled the first of two concerts Bob Marley was to give in Spain at the same stadium a few days later. The civil governor of Madrid, Juan José Rosón, who had also just been appointed Minister of the Interior by Adolfo Suárez, decided that the concert would not take place. " Rosón said he was a subversive artist. A subversive Bob Marley! And that putting on that concert posed a danger to the citizens. But what a danger, damn it! I still had to pay for it even if we didn't do it," explains the promoter, who refuses to give the exact figure of how much money he had to pay at the time. "Just as I don't ask you what you're paid for your work, I'm not going to tell you what I paid for that concert," he adds. [Even telling him the salary doesn't reflect what he paid.]
Thus we arrive at the second important date of that summer in the early 80s.
June 30, 1980The Iberian Peninsula had never seen Bob Marley up close—only a previous performance in Ibiza in 1978—and it would never see him again. Eleven months after landing in Barcelona, he would die of cancer, which the singer refused to treat for three years. That was going to be the only chance to enjoy the great reggae legend in our country after the Madrid date fell through. And the chosen venue was the Monumental, the bullring that still stands in the heart of L'Eixample, with 18,000 tickets sold. Bob Marley, in a bullring . "There were no secrets here; with Marley and his team, it was super easy to negotiate because they were great guys," says Gay Mercader.
The few photos that survive from that night—one of which graces the cover of this supplement—were taken by Francesc Fàbregas, who was working for the music magazine Vibraciones at the time. “I was working hard at that time; it’s hard to remember many things. But Marley was hypnotic. And I say this without being high, although I may have been a little because of what the people around me were smoking. Just seeing him, his posture, his way of acting, was mesmerizing . He was like a contemporary dancer,” notes the photographer, who had already photographed him in Ibiza.
But problems were yet to emerge before the concert, and they had to be linked, of course, to its cancellation in Madrid. Many of those who hadn't gotten tickets for the concert in the capital decided to travel from other cities across Spain to Barcelona with the intention of seeing Bob Marley in the bullring. Although the capacity was scheduled for 18,000, according to articles from the time, there were many more people. Even the stands behind the stage were full. At the doors, the police were trying to contain the audience who continued to try to sneak in or enter legitimately with their tickets while the opening act, Average White Band, had already begun.
"Marley was hypnotic. And I say this without being high, although I was probably a little bit into what the people around me were smoking."
Francesc Fàbregas, photographer
Again referring to the press of the time, they describe riots, overturned cars in the vicinity of the venue, and heavy police action. In fact, given the excessive number of people who had managed to enter the bullring, the officers were forced to close the doors, leaving out some who had bought tickets for the Barcelona concert. "I don't remember anything about that, but I do remember that it was a tremendous concert. I spent half the show on stage with Marley's equipment. They had a drum kit that looked like a toy, which they could have sold at El Corte Inglés. But you gave those guys a shoebox and they made it sound just as good, " says Gay Mercader.
All the anthems the Jamaican had composed in his career were heard that night in Barcelona. Consulting various sources, Marley played "No Woman, No Cry," "Jammin'," "Is This Love," "I Shot the Sheriff," "Get Up," "Stand Up," and a "Redemption Song," which is remembered for the fact that the entire venue fell silent listening to him alone, without the band or his backup singers, playing the guitar to the rhythm of that song. This was recounted in the Arts and Letters supplement of the Heraldo de Aragón by modern music expert Juan José Blasco Panamá . But there was still one event that would add to the legend of the last time the Jamaican set foot on Spanish soil.
The previous year, in 1979, the Lois jeans brand had popularized a Spanish television advertisement that proclaimed, "If your Lois moves, let it dance," while showing the backsides of several boys and girls on a beach, crammed into the company's jeans. The reggae beat that accompanied them behind them was that of Three Little Birds. And Marley wasn't going to miss the opportunity to play it in front of a Spanish audience, reportedly the only time he performed it live with his band, The Wailers. " Since there were very few Marleys, there was never a bad face for anything, and the level of quality on stage was guaranteed ," notes Gay Mercader.
Without leaving Barcelona, or Gay Mercader's promotion company, the third date would be the summer closing event. And in an unexpected setting.
September 19, 1980The Unified Socialist Party of Catalonia (PSUC) is celebrating the third edition of its Festa del Treball (Work Festival). This year's big day for Catalan communists will feature the rockabilly of Los Rebeldes, the classic rock of Los Rapidos—the first group formed by Manolo García, later leader of El último de la fila—, the folk of Mike Olfield, the flamenco guitar of Diego Cortés, and, of course, the punk of Los Ramones, in their first Spanish experience. On the Montjuïc esplanade, in front of the fountain that Carles Buïgas had built for the 1929 Expo, the four members of the band were going to make an appearance , fronted by the immense Joey, at the height of the new wave boom.
"I remember the PSUC (Spanish Socialist Workers' Party) asked us to throw them a big party, and we made them a hell of a mix. Mike Olfield, Diego Cortés, and The Ramones. You think about it now and it's fucking crazy. But they'd never had so many people there," says Gay Mercader, who doesn't remember if admission was free, but does remember that there were "an awful lot" of people. "There could have been around 100,000, but I'm not sure," the promoter points out. Chronicles from the time go even further and estimate the capacity at 150,000. It was precisely this wild turnout that the Spanish television program Musical Express attributed the fact that the sound wasn't "as pleasant, as tuneful, and as decent" as it should have been to the crowd. " That would be what Primavera Sound is today; the Catalan communists put on the first major festivals seen here." "Imagine how things have changed ," notes Francesc Fàbregas, who was also a photographer at that open-air concert.
What the punk fans who came to the Catalan communists' party were looking for wasn't the crystal-clear sound of The Ramones. It was jumping, screaming... and, why not, causing a stir. After Lou Reed and Bob Marley, the closing of that musical summer couldn't have been any less. So many people were watching The Ramones that the audience ended up breaking through the security cordon, smashing through the protective barriers without any opposition from the officers, climbing onto the stage and causing a power outage that left the entire venue in darkness. " Before they jumped over the barriers, the staff was very depressed, but when they jumped over them, they really enjoyed themselves. We have to be less restrictive ," Joey himself declared into a TVE microphone just after the concert. "That was quite an event; I remember that esplanade packed with people. "What I don't remember is if everything was free, if there was an inner area for those who had paid... there were just people, people, and more people," explains Fàbregas, who still remembers his first impression of the group. "They were very impressive: a two-meter-tall singer, a guy with a bass that reached the floor..."
That huge crowd, however, might not have existed. Legend has it—which doesn't matter much if it's true—that Johnny Ramone didn't know where they were going to play in Spain, that he didn't even know they were going to participate in a Spanish Communist Party celebration. But the rest of the band members had agreed not to tell him anything because of the hatred he felt toward that ideology. Shortly before the show began, Joey decided to tell it as a joke, so everyone would laugh before they stepped onto the Montjuïc stage. The anger was so great that the concert was almost canceled .
And so that summer could have been different.
elmundo
