The Beatles against the Rolling Stones was the title of a play by Jordi Mesalles and Miquel Casamayor, premiered in 1981 at the Teatre Romea, not without some scandal: Jordi Pujol's Generalitat then tried to stifle the revolutionary Barcelona of the seventies and found some of the expressions in the text are reprehensible, because they are bad-sounding.
The book was about the rivalry between the fans of both bands. No other antagonism in popular music has generated as much literature or as much uproar: not Aretha Franklin and Patti LaBelle, not Oasis and Blur, not Taylor Swift and Katy Perry... Well, we would have to exclude' n that of rappers from the East and West coasts, which ended with shots and notorious dead singers.
In a way, the rivalry between the Beatles and the Rolling Stones will be revived at the Barça-Real Madrid match on October 28 thanks to sponsor Spotify. On the one hand, the men's section of FC Barcelona will wear the tongue logo on their shirts (Alexia and Aitana's team will wear it later against Sevilla). On the other hand, Madrid has this year recovered a Beatles anthem, Hey Jude, which is played at the Bernabéu to encourage the new star, the charismatic Jude Bellingham. It doesn't sound as tuned as that distant She loves you from the Kop stand at Anfield Road, but the truth is that it impresses. Beatles versus Rolling Stones in the era of reggaeton.
The Spanish chronology of the Rolling Stones overlaps with the history of the rivalry between two antagonistic cities, despite everything they have in common. The new shirt is another chapter (a goal for some). let's see it
Jagger and Richards landed in 1976 in the effervescent post-Franco and libertarian Barcelona under the guidance of promoter Gay Mercader. That 1976 brawl at the Monumental, with Ronnie Wood dressed as a bullfighter, has become over time the symbol of a Barcelona that was the Spanish gateway to modernity arriving from Europe. The image of youths without tickets confronting the police helped fuel the legend. It is one of the icons of the transition.
Madrid would take revenge six years later. In 1982, what was supposed to be a double Stones concert in both cities became a Madrid monologue, as Espanyol refused at the last minute to give up the old Sarrià stadium and both ended up being scheduled performances at the Vicente Calderón, in full bloom of the movement. One of the performances, with thousands of people braving an intense downpour, is considered by the fans of the capital to be the best concert that has ever been held in Spain...
Since then there has been some alternation. The promoters have preferred not to burn a city with two performances in a row. Because, as much as we get excited when our idols tell us from the stage that we are the best, the truth is that tours are decided based on cold profitability calculations, with no room for feelings. From Madrid to Barcelona, moreover, it takes less than three hours by train. You schedule concerts in one and the audience comes to you in the other. In fact, the 1982 Calderón was full of displaced Catalans. The only thing the singer has to do is not make a mistake. As Jagger once said, "I've learned these years that before you say 'Hello, Seattle' you have to make sure you're in Seattle."
Barça fans celebrated the new shirt on Thursday as a success for the team and the city. The promotional impact is undoubted. But Madrid now has an advantage in the song. What Rollingstonian anthem can Barça oppose to the unappealable Hey Jude of the whites? They are not missing from Jagger's repertoire
What is not up for debate is that with this shirt on you have no right to lose. What a responsibility for the Barça players.
