Pen-Slinger

Last week I made the pilgrimage to Madrid to see the Goddess. The one they call Shakira.

I am a recent convert. I had been hearing about Shakira since the 90’s, of course. But I always wrote her off as another of those dancing stars who sing a bit. I’m more of a Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, Led Zep kind of guy – the standard Baby Boomer. Then, sometime early last year, the French arts channel Arte put the entire Oral Fixation Tour video on replay. There was nothing better on TV, so I watched it. From end to end. I was blown off my feet. I was mesmerized, transfixed, discombobulated. This was not another dancing star. This was one of the greats. An artiste who rubbed shoulders with The Beatles and Elvis and Bob Dylan. Her lyrics vied with Lennon and Dylan. Her voice was operatic. She could play a dozen instruments. She could be hard rock, Latin, chanson française, pop, blues, standards. And the dancing – oh my dear God… she was music made flesh. She made words, music and dance into an indivisible whole. A goddess in human form.

I was filled with shame, and chagrin. So many years wasted that I could have been listening to her music. I had to make up for lost time. I immediately ran out and bought all her albums and DVDs. I listened to them endlessly. I started learning Spanish to understand her songs. I watched all her videos on YouTube. I read all about her. I watched all of her interviews. I realized she was not only a great artist, but a wonderful human being who had come up the hard way, and was doing so much for impoverished children all over the world. An inspiration. As intelligent and deep as she was beautiful. I watched one song from the Oral Fixation Tour video every night, before going to bed. It made my dreams sweet.

And I longed to see her in person.

Luckily, Shakira had recently dumped her moron of a husband and used the pain, like any true artist, to come come up with a brilliant new album. Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran. And she announced a world tour to promote it, the Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran World Tour.

I waited and waited for the LMYNL Tour to come to Paris, but it stayed firmly in the Americas. At last, the Madrid Residency was announced, and I jumped at it. Madrid is slightly more complicated to get to than Paris, from chez moi in Lyon, but it is more doable than US or Mexico. Tickets were surprisingly easy to get, with so many dates to choose from. I grabbed the October 9 date. I took the front row standing tickets. They were reasonably priced at 183 Euros.

My wife Blandine is not a Shakira fan. She is resolutely French, and refuses to listen to any music not produced by a compatriot. Florent Pagny and Patrick Bruel are her thing. But I nagged, cajoled and wheedled her into making it into a five day vacation in Madrid. I have a horror of traveling alone.

Air tickets booked, hotels reserved, days counted, one by one.

At last, there I was. On the way to the concert on the Metro Line 3 to Villaverde to the Iberdrola Music grounds, where Shakira had built for herself her own stadium – Estadio Shakira – and a small arts village to go with it. I was all alone. Blandine preferred to explore Madrid.

My first view of Iberdrola Music grounds:

My first view of Estadio Shakira:

A long wait in the sun, with a slightly bossy security guard bullying everyone into making straight lines. The lines kept going out of shape. Hey, this isn’t Germany! The cerveza in the plastic Shakira cups helped, served by kindly life savers toting big, sploshing beer fountain backpacks. (Learn this phrase: “Una cerveza, por favor”. It may save your life some day, if you happen to be in Spain).

The gates opened. A mad rush to enter. To hell with the straight lines.

With a bit of luck and quick thinking – I ran in an outer loop instead of joining the main bunch heading for the center - I ended up at the perfect position: the corner of the main stage and ramp. And I was almost at the crash barrier. Just two people ahead of me.

This was my position:

Another long wait in the sun, packed like a sardine. I was surrounded by a platoon of plump dames from Nicaragua. They didn't much like standing in the heat. They sat down. They scrunched down on the false grass, by kind of slithering down vertically in the crush. One of them used my foot as a cushion. My legs froze. Blood circulation stopped. Her friend decided she had enough staring into a sea of smelly legs. She tried to get up. It was impossible. Two frail girls tried to pull her up. They couldn’t. I stepped in. I grabbed her biceps and yanked her up. She slapped me jovially on the back and said something complementary in Spanish. Something like “This was a man’s work”. There is nothing that breaks the ice like grabbing a woman by the biceps and yanking her up. She wrapped a meaty arm around my shoulder and told me all about herself. She was from Nicaragua but was now settled in the South of Spain, in Málaga.

The screen started showing pictures Shakira in sexy clothing posing with what seemed like plastic bottles of cosmetics. Were these ads? Our goddess doing ads? I was dismayed. Oh well, I’m sure she uses the funds to set up schools for poor children, so I guess it’s OK, I said to myself. Later I found out that these were ads for Shakira’s own Isima line of haircare products. Not finding anything on the market suitable for Latino hair, she invented her own products. And yes, she uses them herself. She covers her hair in this stuff in the morning during rehearsals, and washes it off just before the concert, so that her hair is that nice, fluffy, wavy thing that we all admire.

Then the screen started showing old Shakira music videos, starting from her very first one, when she was still a scowling, dark-haired, guitar-slinging rock babe with an attitude, progressing slowly to her gracious blonde goddess phase. A big relief. It took one’s mind off from the heat and the crush and the bladder that was giving off disturbing signals.

The hour of the concert arrived. And went. But the videos went on. The relief quickly grew into panic. Were they gonna announce that Shakira had a tummy ache and couldn’t perform, and now that we’d watched her videos, we could all go home? After all, she had canceled shows before on the LMYNL tour. As each video ended, the crowd cheered, but then another one started, and the crowd sighed, but sang along loyally.

At last, the screen went dark. The crowd cheered, this time with more confidence.

And then our goddess was in our midst.

I must have seen her in over a thousand videos, but seeing her there, in flesh, right in front of me, was a magical moment.

She did all her stuff. Having already seen countless videos of the LMNYL tour, there were no real surprises. The same songs, the dance moves, the same gestures, the same funny expressions at the right places. But at the same time, it was different. Seeing the same smile and gesture in person was light years away from seeing it on screen. It was somehow more real, more authentic, more human. Every move that she made was blown up a hundred fold on the giant screen behind her. But it wasn’t the same. I kept my eyes firmly on the tiny figure in front of me.

And then it was over.

I was too busy burning every moment of the concert into my memory to take pictures and videos, but I did take a few. After all, memories fade. I needed something to relive these moments, a month, a year, several years down the line.

Here are some of those photos and videos…

As I said, it is nothing like being there in person. You’ll have to go to one of her concerts yourself, if you haven’t already. I understand she has lined up a huge concert in Egypt, right in front of the Pyramids. That should be something. I wish I could see that.

Are you a Shakira Fan too? Share your thoughts...