Yes, Coldplay have chosen Barcelona to perform, but when looking for accompanists they have looked towards Madrid, a point of reference for both the Hinds and Ona Mafalda. It is what unites the two local opening acts who will accompany the British quartet in next week's concerts, who, moreover, have in common the youth and the status of women, as is usual for the artists chosen to open the concerts of the tour Music of the Spheres . There will also be the Scottish electronic pop trio The Chvrches, who have accompanied the band since their passage through Brazil defending their new single, Over.
The news took the Hinds, Carlotta Cosials and Ana Perrote by surprise, an indie garage band with a decade of experience, who this Friday attended La Vanguardia on their way back from the French Dordogne, where they were in the middle of recording the new disc, interrupted by the two concerts that will be held on the 24th and 25th to warm up the Barcelona public. "We haven't even had time to get nervous because we've just recorded an album, which is one of the most important things in a group", explains Carlotta Cosials from the van in which she returns to Madrid with Ana Perrote. The news took them by surprise, as they had no plans to perform this summer to concentrate on the album, to the point that they didn't even have drums and bass, a problem that they have ipso facto solved with a new line-up that they will debut in Olympic Stadium itself. At the performance they will drop some of the new topics they are working on.
His relationship with Coldplay dates back to 2020, when in the middle of the pandemic Chris Martin posted a tweet in which he described them as "the antidote to the pandemic". "Then I sent him a message, but he didn't answer me." An initial disappointment that was erased when he later contacted them. "We were wanted, he wanted us by his own decision", explains Carlotta with the surprise still in her voice, while Ana can be heard in the background remembering that when she found out about the news "she was jumping and screaming for five minutes" .
Next week's performances do not scare the Hinds, it is not for nothing that they were the first Spanish group to perform at major festivals, such as Glastonbury or Coachella. They will be "all great tracks, the best of each album". And as a gift, one of the new songs they've been recording. "We'll throw ourselves in the pool", says Carlotta, seconded by Ana, who admits that "we don't know the arrangements yet". It makes them more nervous that their families will be present in Barcelona.
If the Hinds are Spanish women who sing in English, the other opening act, Ona Mafalda, is an English girl who was brought up and has switched to Spanish for dark pop songs. Known in other fields for her links with the Bulgarian royalty – she is the granddaughter of Simeon II –, the artist declares herself "extremely excited" to perform with Coldplay. "It's one of the first concerts my mother took us to when we were little," she remembers.
It was a performance where he realized that "something had to be done with music in his life". Educated in England, Mafalda trained musically at Berklee, then moved to New York before arriving in Madrid, her current residence, where she ended up exploiting the relationship with electronics thanks to the collaboration with Delaporte in Que se coba, "I loved it so much that I knew I wanted to introduce this same energy in the next project".
After starting her musical career in English, Mafalda switched to Spanish, the language in which she recorded the album Ona this year, in which she talks about the "cycles of life that pass like a wave". This is the first album in which he does not sing in English, although he maintains the British influences, such as the drum
As for the language change, he admits that it was a challenge at first. "Castilian for me was purely at home", he explains, but once he started singing in this language "there was no turning back".
