The arrival of Bruce Springsteen to the city of Barcelona at dawn yesterday has aroused the expectation of the artist's followers, who will fill the Montjuïc Olympic Stadium for two nights in concerts that have multiplied their impact after the confirmation that Barack Obama and Steven Spielberg will go on site tomorrow to see their friend perform. Actor Tom Hanks and his wife Rita Wilson could also join the guest list.
For now, Springsteen's presence in Barcelona has been discreet, and he has only been seen outside the La Florida hotel, where he will stay for the weekend.
Yesterday, a few fans who stood guard in front of the luxurious Tibidabo hotel were awarded the prize of getting autographs from The Boss. "Barcelona is the best, always," he told his followers in a few words captured by the TV3 program Planta baixa.
It is expected that the Obama couple and the Spielbergs will also spend the night in this hotel, who will land in Barcelona this Thursday. The Obamas would carry out several cultural visits throughout Friday - there is talk of the Picasso museum and the Sagrada Familia - before going to the concert, which they will witness at the foot of the track from a secure capsule specially enabled for these very special guests, according to reports the newspaper El País. Barack Obama will leave for Zurich on Saturday morning to attend some conferences and his wife will stay one more day.
It is not ruled out that during these days Springsteen visits the Bruce Springsteen exhibition. Barcelona 1981, with photographs of his first concert in Barcelona, which can currently be visited at the Palau Robert.
The presence of these personalities, notorious for the media, will not be so for the Barcelona fans who have been waiting for the return of The Boss for seven years, a very special event for the members of Stone Pony, the only Springteen fan club in Spain , which for more than 30 years has brought together nearly 2,000 faithful of New Jersey.
It was precisely a Springsteen pirated record that was responsible for the appearance of the club, when, at the Fira del Disc in 1988, Joan Colet and Xavier Agut took the same vinyl from a concert by The Boss at the same time. This fortuitous meeting germinated in a friendship that led them from exchanging pirate concerts to the creation of a four-handed fanzine in imitation of Backstreets, the American fan magazine. In the next Fira, they advertised a list of exchanging The Boss material and up to a hundred people promised to pay 200 pesetas in stamps in exchange for receiving the magazine.
The big leap came a year later, in 1990, when they were invited to the Mikimoto clip program, which boosted the subscriber list to 700 people. From then on, growth was constant at the rate of Springsteen's performances, until it reached 2,000 members. Since then the figure has remained stable, giving rise to regular meetings and the creation, in 1995, of a store first at record fairs and over time on the web where they offer products related to Bruce Springsteen, from merchandising to promotional material. collecting, albums and all kinds of publications. It was precisely this year when Joan chose to dedicate himself entirely to the club. “My real payment is following Springsteen,” she says, proud of having attended more than 280 The Boss concerts.
The trips organized by Stone Pony began in 1992 with a trip to Paris, and since then they have made more than 200 trips to Europe and more than 50 to the USA. On this last tour they have organized four trips to the other side of the Atlantic, and they plan to attend almost all the concerts of the European tour, mobilizing a total of a thousand people across the continent. Throughout these three decades, the members of the club have had more than one opportunity to get closer to Springsteen, to whom they have handed various club magazines over the years, a contact from a distance that they will hardly be able to have this weekend. His main concern will be to manage the arrival of the around 900 people who will attend the concert from various parts of Spain, an effort to maintain communion around Springsteen, a reference in life for a whole generation of old and not so old rockers.
