Last Saturday, the third of April, me and some of my friends prepared a concert called The Night of the Living Covers. Instead of going to the church to celebrate the Resurrection (it was Easter Saturday you see and although I am not religious at all I felt something tinging inside me, blame it to my Greek upbringing), we gathered at the bar of Le Meridien, a hotel at the Ramblas in Barcelona, to resurrect some of our favourite songs, songs that changed our lives and played their tiny but significant part in contributing in who we are right now. These are songs decidated to lovers from the past who are no longer by our side, dreamboats, unrequited love that made us wet a pillow or two, manipulative assholes who played with our nerves, secret affairs, painful separations, walks by the sea, magic encounters, lust, loss, teenage dreams that came or never came true, our friends, our mothers. These are songs that have haunted us, some of them since we were spotty adolescents that lived glued to the radio or to their cassette collection. Other songs may have been added to our "Haunt" list only recently, during those ipod days, but the spell they cast is not to be denied... One thing is for sure: Ghosts do exist and they can take the form of glorious melodies. And they can haunt you again, and again and bring back memories.
The concert´s second name was Duets, thus, in every song, one of my friends would come close to the Grand Piano, pick the mick and sing with me one tune at a time. Then he or she would go back to the audience and another one would take the microphone.
The songs we played are the following but since some memories of that night got blown away by loads of delicious strawberry -something cocktails, they are in random order!
He didn´t-The 6ths
This old heart of mine-The Isley Brothers
Johnny remember be-John Leyton
Underwear-Pulp
(with Elsa de Alfonso)
Tender is the night-The Triffids
Bitter tears-The Magnetic Fields
There must be and Angel-Eurythmics
(with Adrian de Alfonso)
What have I done to deserve this?-Pet Shop Boys
(with Luis Verges)
Young and in love-The Marvelettes
I´d much rather be with the boys-The Rolling Stones
I got you babe-Sonny & Cher
(with Ene Anoux)
Something´s got a hold of my heart-Gene Pitney
The sun ain´t gonna shine anymore-The Walker Brothers
Manoula mou-Manos Xantzidakis
(with Jordi Maranges)
The false contender-Camera Obscura
Interlude-Timi Yuro
Hand in glove-The Smiths
Bad romance-Lady GaGa
I´ll be your mirror-The Velvet Underground & Nico
(with Laura Antolin)
When the gig end I played some records and as soon as I discovered that the mic was still on we thrust into a spontaenous drunk doo wop-indie pop-karaoke untill the hotel manager came furious and ordered us to stop the music. I did as I was told but soon me and some other friends started playing the piano and singing and making quite a noise. Finally the manager came back and kicked us out of the five-star hotel. A fun night definitely. Thanks to everyone who came by and of course many thanks to all those who sang with me. Till next time!
