The future has arrived. The band Mutant Children prepares a tour of theaters across the country while deceased singers perform in hologram version. Although the people of Granada return to the live stage on time with their performance of La Riviera this Friday, they looked for an alternative to show their latest album live, Windows, released in the fateful month of March. “We thought that movie theaters were perfect spaces, with a large screen, good sound equipment and access to details that you can’t see from your site when you’re at a concert,” says its vocalist, Juan Alberto Martínez.
Contrary to what has happened with their 11 previous works, they have hardly been able to present their new compositions on stage. The solution was to create a concert / documentary, I will never forget tonight, which can be seen in movie theaters from January 28. Its main plot line is one of the performances they offered in their hometown in October, but in it, in addition to songs, more intimate moments are interspersed that contextualize what happened that evening. “There were many people who kept their tickets for that concert for months, as has also happened with the one in Madrid. That night had a very powerful emotional component and we thought it was worth telling. It was a very big energy discharge for us, ”he recalls.
For the musician and lawyer, everything is strange lately. “Who was going to tell us that technologies were going to be the ones that were going to save us. We have an ambivalent relationship with them. We recently spoke with Kiko Veneno and Mr. Chinarro about current demands, in which artists not only have to do songs and concerts, but we also have to shake up social networks. But, on the other hand, they are the ones that give us a window of communication with the people and those that have made this year we have not given it up for lost ”, he reflects. Playing in the Madrid venue will be a way of continuing to support his colleagues in the industry: “More people accompany us off the stage than on top of it. We will probably cover only expenses, but this way we do what we had planned and all of them will be able to continue working for at least one day ”.
Windows It is the album in which the group has opted for a more complex production and, according to the singer, it is precisely the most difficult to transfer to a basic live performance, with only a couple of electric guitars, bass and drums. “Presenting it in the conditions that the summer of 2020 gave us seemed like a betrayal of the album itself. It was a bitch, “he says. The initial idea was to accompany that sound with sophisticated visual effects, which can finally be seen in his Madrid concert. “It is a very elaborate set design and lighting design that we have hardly used. We have the rehearsal room full of light fixtures that never hit the road and are now going to be in La Riviera ”, he advances.
Except for the masks, everything will be as they thought in their day. It is on the other side, in the part occupied by the public, where the band will notice the difference, with less capacity and seated attendees who cannot see their faces. They have also found something positive in that. “Those who come to see us at these concerts, as happens to colleagues who do theater, are people who have an emotional need to consume culture and generate a very special atmosphere. It is a militant public. It reminds me of those devoted attendees who came to see us at independent music festivals when we started out in this world in the mid-nineties. They are those who were already there before such events became a mass fad. Which, on the other hand, opened the spectrum to a wider audience ”, defends Martínez.
For years, music groups have depended on their tours to bill, having lost control of income from listening to their songs. “The agreement for reproductions of streaming. The foundations were laid when platforms like Spotify did not have the weight in the industry that they have now, “defends the singer. “The problem is that musicians are not very united in that sense, so it would have to be the European Union and the governments who regulate it, as has happened with other cultural industries. Something like this is necessary so that we can live with dignity of our own, without having to depend on moonlighting. Otherwise, only David Bisbal and Vetusta Morla will be able to do so. And so the diversity of artists is lost, we cannot reach those levels ”.
The growing Granada scene
Granada has been one of the hot spots in independent pop and rock since the 1990s, when Niños Mutantes emerged along with bands like Lagartija Nick and Lori Meyers. Juan Alberto Martínez celebrates that his generation companions continue to produce music in the middle of 2020, but also that this sound buzz has expanded. The singer mentions Verona, a band created in 2016 with whom he just collaborated on the single Milan, and Collective Da Silva. “The Granada scene is neither created nor destroyed; it just transforms, ”he jokes. “There is an energy here that continues to evolve. We cannot forget that many of the dominators of the current urban music scene have come from here, such as Dellafuente and Yung Beef. It’s good that the city doesn’t just come out of guitar music. “
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