Music & Travel

I already told you about the Cooncert initiative when I published the photos of She Keeps Bees not very long ago. Well, Zola Jesus was the first of my proposals that the Cooncert team selected and put out on the Web for votation. And guess what? It got enough votes and I got to see Zola Jesus live for the very first time! On top of that, the team invited me to come to the venue earlier to have a look at the sound check. Which is probably the most boring thing for the artists and their teams and generally, everybody who works in the music industry, but which is also kinda cool and exciting for someone like me, who never has the occasion to have a look behind the curtains! It was also a good preview of what was to come... Honestly, I think this was the best concert I saw last year. I was already very enthusiastic about many concerts, including Indochine , She Keeps Bees, Björk , numerous concerts seen in festivals and of course, the stunning concert of Asaf Avidan . I guess Zola Je...

El año pasado, justo para mi cumple, tuve que ir de viaje profesional a Bogotá. Como la mayoría de veces, no tuve mucho más que algunas horas para pasear por la ciudad. Pero como siempre, ¡fueron horas bien aprovechadas! Dimos sobre todo un buen paseo por la Candelaria, el centro histórico, y aprovechamos para visitar el museo Botero y el museo del oro. En cuanto al barrio, volvi a encontrar estos contrastes que ya había experimentado en otras ciudades del continente, pero tal vez aún más marcados. Hay cierto aire de abandono y desolación en la Candelaria, con muchos edificios cerrados y bastante deshechos, que contrasta con edificios coloniales todavía bien preservados, e incluso edificios mucho más modernos, como el centro cultural Gabriel García Márquez. A pesar del clima poco favorable que nos acompañó, no pude evitar notar con alegría los edificios coloridos. ¡Ya sabéis que tengo cierta obsesión por encontrar los colores de las ciudades! También la Candelaria parece ser el terren...

This one needs no introduction, I suppose... The concert took place last year at Poble Espanyol, where I had never been to see a live show. It's kind of a weird place to organize a concert but I guess in summertime, it makes sense to organize open air shows in Barcelona. Anyway, I couldn't resist since it had been quite a long time since I had seen Björk live. Even though I may not feel super enthusiastic about her latest records, it's always impressive to see her on stage. This concert was no exception and if I slightly regretted not hearing more songs from the earliest records, I was once again speechless before the intensity of Björk's voice and performance. I still find it hard to believe that she's fifty now...

No, this is not a concert I managed to squeeze in between two festivals. This one took place in May last year but I never had or took the time to go through my photos. It was organized thanks to Cooncert, an initiative I have been following for a while now. It's basically a social initiative that aims to promote concerts in Spain, probably born from the fact that the rise in cultural taxes made it extremely more complicated for artists, both national and international, to organize tours in the country. So the process is easy: you propose artists that you would like to see live. If your proposal is selected, it is shared on Cooncert's Website so that other users can vote. If you manage to get enough votes, the team at Cooncert gets in touch with the artists (or their agents, I'm assuming) to organize a gig in one or several Spanish cities -according to the expressions of interest! She Keeps Bees was not one of my proposals (although I'm proud to say Cooncert alread...