Manuel Jabois was once asked what the best concert of his life was, and he responded: “Manu Chao, Lalín. We didn’t even get in.” Because going to concerts to listen to music was no longer the case even at the Woodstock Festival. That’s why, for eight years now, the SON Estrella Galicia Posidonia has been providing a soundtrack to the island of Formentera for four days. An event for those who do not like music festivals, considering that sOur 350 attendees have no idea what they are going to hear. Something that does not prevent the tickets, which went on sale two months ago, from being sold out in two hours.
Anyone who met the attendees on the island could confuse them with an excursion from the Portonovo neighborhood association, with a bachelor party, with a wedding party, with a teetotalers’ party, or with a hop sect. It is also true that “any excuse is a good one to say goodbye to the summer in Formentera”, as Cristina, from Pamplona, says, already with four festivals under her belt.
What started out as a meeting of Galicians, has not taken long to become a peninsular meeting, and is preparing for an international meeting, as demonstrated by the presence of the British and German press in the edition. It’s even starting to be a festival for Formentera. In order to reserve some tickets for residents, it has been decided to give away the Friday concert in the Plaza de Sant Ferrán, the epicenter of everything important that happens on the island.
DJ Marco Holtman, Roosevelt and as the main course Baiuca, who according to the attendees gave one of the best shows in the history of Formentera, according to the aborigines. In the square, everyone remembered the Tanxugueiras, with their folktronica of tambourine, sacho and can of paprika; when Baiuca had been on stage doing electronics for a few years ginger.
During the day, the SON Estrella Galicia takes to the mountains, dividing attendees into three hiking routes, which include a biology talk and a country concert. Those who had to descend the climb to La Mola on the Camí de Sa Pujada on Saturday enjoyed the best aerial view of the island surrounded by phosphorescent lizards, and They ended up in a cave with Miren Iza, Tulsa.
The Basque psychiatrist appeared with the guitarist Clara Collantes, dressed as if to claim the female priesthood, and sang a lot of problems: with her ass, with her squeezed tits, with her pussy full of moss, with her mother, with a certain Joaquín and with the people who handle the fruit before buying it, which I wish was inspired by an Oliver Sacks-type patient. Tulsa a cappella, without musical arrangements and sounds in a cave, even more distressed than usual. Among the attendees was a woman sitting on a rock so similar to Christina Rosenvinge that she turned out to be Christina Rosenvinge.
In the afternoon one could sign up for a beer workshop which, of course, did not consist of tasting beers and smelling bowls of malts and hops, which too. If one of the directors of the brewing company, Víctor Mantiñán Gil, sings and plays the electric guitar, things could get out of hand.
The exercise consists of knowing what your beer sounds like, mixing flavors with bass, drums and guitars. “If you don’t get it, nothing happens,” warned one of the promoters, actually opening the door to comparing beers with Formula 1 engines, or with the scheme of a team in a Euro Cup. At the moment, with music, you can even take the test on the brewery’s website.
Víctor is responsible for putting a Galician beer in Formentera to make a “non-festival” with a secret sign: “I didn’t see myself depending on having to pay someone so that people buy tickets. It seemed to me that it was entering a loop that only was going to generate costs and disappointments. His other responsibility, leaving Formentera as it was, hence why he boasts of having created the only festival True Zero Waste of the world. “We care about what we leave behind when the music ends,” he explains.
The up to 15 types of beer that all attendees could drink under an open bar regime were paired in almost all the beach clubs on the island with tastings such as Savel Airas Moniz blue cheese, bluefin tuna tartare with piparra gel or suckling pig Saam, made at Gueko Beach by Vicky Sevilla, the youngest chef to earn a Michelin star, who ended the night, blowtorch in hand, melting sobrasada with honey over slices of bread.
At that moment the public had given everything with Kabeaushéone of the great revelations of the contest. A cross between Bollywood, the Bronx and African melodies, with a staging that recalled ET in the wig scene, and an organ background ideal for satanic rites, which turned everything into a baroque and excessive party, in a night of wind and waves in front of Migjorn beach. It was nothing more than an overture to the main course of the festival, the 2manyDJs. The brothers David and Stephen Dewaele gave Hispanic winks mixing Chimo Bayo while dozens of curious people without a ticket crowded backstage, attracted, like all of us who had arrived to the island, following the same promise as mosquitoes when they go towards the light.