The pandemic especially hit concerts within the music sector, and its recovery was already noted in the final 2022 in a huge increase in live music, a trend that does not stop growing. Sticking to the city of Barcelona, the recent data on the exponential increase in live music in the Montjuïc venues for 2023 summarizes it clearly: more than half a million spectators are summoned to concerts in the Olympic Ring, a figure which reaches 1.2 million if we add the capacity, at the Fòrum, Primavera Sound, the Barcelona Beach Festival and the Cruïlla.
The fear that there was a possible oversaturation of the offer seems that for the moment it has not materialized, but rather it even seems to be growing -especially since the return of the great planetary tours- with the proliferation of festivals and with the recovery of Barcelona as obligatory stop on the international circuit. And all of this when the offer is by no means closed, like that of the Jardins de Pedralbes Festival. In the list of concerts that we offer below, the newsworthy impact of the event is combined with its artistic quality and subjective criteria.
1 Coldplay
24-28 mayo
The London group has become one of the undisputed protagonists of the music scene on a planetary scale, especially due to its dizzying rise to the top of fan attendance (its ten sold out this year at the River Plate stadium in Buenos Aires are quite a milestone). Very few individual acts can currently convene and fill four nights almost in a row at the Barcelona Olympic Stadium (24, 25, 27 and 28) as Chris Martin and others will do on their Music of the Spheres Tour.
On their last visit to the capital in a similar space in 2016, they already showed where the shots of their live success are going, a colorful epic that permeates all kinds of audiences. Gone is the definitively good-natured and melancholic pop of its beginnings, which has also given way to a type of tour that runs on renewable energy, which implies, among other things, having electric bicycles and kinetic dance floors for fans to enjoy. who want to contribute to it have the mechanism.
2 Bruce Springsteen
April 28 and 30
Another definitive proof of the Boss's connection with Barcelona: start of the European tour and the only two concerts in Spain that he will offer together with the E Street Band in 2023. This also means the return to the Catalan capital of Springsteen together with the iconic formation seven years after The River Tour landed at the Camp Nou. This time it will be the Olympic Stadium that will host these two concerts of a tour that will have started in the United States at the beginning of February. His last album dates from 2020, Letter to you, and his last regular performances date back to the Springsteen on Broadway show.
3 Kendrick Lamar
June 2
Lamar returns as one of the undisputed headliners of the Primavera Sound festival, which this year opens its Barcelona-Madrid bifronte edition. The outstanding North American hip-hop singer will fill the Parc del Fòrum with a complicit and combative spell, in a musical call that will bring together more than 200 names. Among these, the performances of the band Depeche Mode (first name released by the organization), Blur and, of course, Rosalía (June 3) will stand out.
4 The Who
June 14
The Who can be considered without falling into error or exaggeration as one of the three great British groups in the history of rock, along with the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. A fact that enhances their presence in Barcelona... in what will be their first concert in the city, and even more so in the case of a band with almost six decades of artistic life.
Some circumstances that give a special aspect to the presence of Roger Daltrey's voice and Pete Townshend's guitar together at the Palau Sant Jordi and on what will be the only Spanish date of his tour. Not only will they be with the band one hundred percent –with Zak Starkey, Ringo Starr's son, on drums–, but they will also have a full orchestra, with which they will do an anthological tour including their latest studio album Who.
5 Harry Styles
July 14
The Olympic Stadium will once again be the reception center for one of the artists who are hitting it right now with their Love On Tour 2023. Her time with One Direction has already given her enormous dimension, which she is now bringing back to her own lands, as reflected in the justifiably extraordinary reception of her new solo album, Fine line.
6 Elton John
May 22 and 23
Elton John has been retiring from the stage for over a year. The news did not finish being believed in an imminent sense, and more taking into account the excellent state of form of him. But just in case, it's a good opportunity to see one of the most acclaimed artists in pop history live at the Palau Sant Jordi. The tour is called Farewell yellow brick road and will stop at the Montjuïc venue for two nights, where he will relive the greatest hits of five decades of artistic career, with jewels such as Rocket man, Tiny dancer, Your song, Don't go breaking my heart or Candle in the wind, a song that holds the record for the best-selling single in history, with 33 million copies.
7 Bad Gyal
February 11
Bad Gyal, considered one of the most internationally renowned Catalan artists on the urban music scene, will offer her most massive concert at the Palau Sant Jordi. It is a self-produced show in collaboration with Primavera Sound, and it gives continuity to what the singer is offering at festivals –which includes Primavera Sound and concerts in Los Angeles, Buenos Aires and São Paulo–, although news is announced for that night .
8 The Weeknd
July 20
The ubiquitous and abrasive Canadian star Abel Makkonen Tesfaye finally brings his After h to the Estadi Olímpic Lluís Companys after various pandemic cancellations. He will serve you to present his latest albums, the very recent Dawn FM and After hours.
9 Blink-182
October 4
The mythical American punk band Blink-182 –for some the most influential of the 90s– reunites ten years after its dissolution to offer a world tour. The Palau Sant Jordi is one of the stops.
10 Roger Waters
March 21
Roger Waters seems to be another of the myths that is withdrawing from the stage. The fact is that the glorious 79-year-old English musician has included his accomplice city Barcelona in This Is Not a Drill Tour 2023, (which comes to say "This is not a drill Tour"). They are concerts where he is presented as "the creator of the golden age of Pink Floyd", in reference to the albums The dark side of the moon, Wish you were here, Animals, The wall and The final cut (1983). The concert, which is held on a 360º stage with a spectacular visual display, includes up to twenty of Pink Floyd's classics such as Us
11 Sílvia Pérez Cruz
May 24 and 25
The Tívoli theatre, as part of the Guitar Bcn festival, is the setting for the premiere of the new work by the musician, artist and singer from Empordà Sílvia Pérez Cruz. It is about “a work that is born of solitude with the desire to unite solitudes”, as she confesses. She will have an album coming out this year and at concerts she will be accompanied by a multi-instrumental trio.
12 Moonlight
April 11
Considered one of the rock bands of the moment since their victory in Eurovision 2021, the Italians will light up their new album Rush! , which is the axis of a tour that will stop at the Palau Sant Jordi.
13 Duki
March 3 and 4
Two nights also at the Palau Sant Jordi to experience in all its intensity what a ragpicker like the Argentinean Duki really is. A real crack on Spotify, at this concert Duki will bring one of the most special shows of his tour.
14 Joaquín Sabina
27 and 29 September
The same space and also two evenings form the framework of Against all odds, the return tour of the incombustible bard from Úbeda. A tour in which controversy broke out before it started when it was learned that it would not have the guitarist Pancho Varona after many years of collaboration.
15 Maria Pelae
March 11
The case of the concert that the singer María Peláe will offer in the Apolo hall within the Guitar Bcn festival, serves to illustrate the competition/breadth of the live music offer in the city: at the same time, Rufus T. Firefly will be reeled off songs from his album El largo mañana at La 2 de Apolo and the prestigious mc Nach will offer a session at the Razzmatazz.
