The Barnasants festival of original song raises the curtain today with a tribute to the fiesta mayor de la transición orchestras. Entitled Orchestras for Freedom, the evening will take place at the Teatre Joventut de l'Hospitalet de Llobregat (8 p.m.).
In the presentation of this festival start, the director of the cycle, Pere Camps, emphasized that "these are orchestras that made the anti-Franco youth dance, that was for the anti-democratic break and that was fighting to try to change things". Manel Joseph, Salvador Escribà, Miquel Mallafré and Quimet Carreras will lead a literally exceptional performance, as it will be the premiere of a formation created for the occasion and made up of 13 musicians from reference bands such as Orquesta Plateria, La Salseta del Poble Sec and Huapachá Combo .
For this very special night, a repertoire has been prepared where there will be room for many of the most enjoyable pieces from the different combos. Before the presentation of the concert last week at the Barcelona headquarters of the SGAE, the entire orchestra offered a general rehearsal of what can be heard. Thus, they interpreted almost twenty titles, especially danceable ones, "and that would take us back to that time of dance and also of vindication" as Manel Joseph explained: from the indispensable P edro Navaja, Rumba de Barcelona, See you later crocodile or I'm going to town to closer cuts like Twist of the ecumenical pizza, Estic xocat, El company or De matinada, going through Ligia Elena, Waitress of my love, Girl, Chocolate per tutti or Ei, company! They closed the prolific essay with the Senquiu very match included in that memorable Golfus de joke album.
When assessing the project from each of the formations, Salvador Escribà, from La Salseta del Poble Sec, recalled that they managed to transfer those festival dances to an intergenerational audience. "We managed to get young people to participate in a moment of euphoria and recovery from the street and from the major festivals and it was brutal."
For his part, Quimet Carreras, from the Huapachá Combo, recalled the boom in musical proposals like theirs, to the point that “Sara Montiel wanted us in her show; we were the first to make parodies of television commercials”.
Manel Joseph, charismatic visible head of the Orquestra Plateria, traveled to the past and assured that they were positioned on the side of anti-Francoism and opposition to the authority of the time and "all this shit that we have on us." The information he shared was significant when he said that for years they were touring a lot in Spain: “In Catalonia it is where we worked the least; If in Spain we did 80 gigs, here 12”.
With this concert, the Barnasants 2023 festival will be inaugurated, which according to Pere Camps seeks to defend culture, "democratic memory and good music" with a lineup that will have some 150 concerts this year in Catalan-speaking territories, 105 of them in Catalonia, which will last until May.
