“No 'posture'. Rollo costumbrista to death”: how Estopa has managed to seduce Tangana, Rosalía and a whole new generation

Only one phrase was clearly heard from David Muñoz (Cornellá de Llobregat, 46 years old) in the entire concert that Estopa gave last Friday at the WiZink Center in Madrid: "I went to the river bank", the beginning of the song

.

That first cut of the duo's first album was, in turn, the first of the night to be played and to be euphorically chanted by the more than 15,000 people who packed the venue, of varied ages and with almost perfect gender parity, perhaps with a group more of friends than friends.

Entire families gathered (a girl stood in the front row, accompanied by her mother, with a sign asking the Muñoz brothers to come to her wedding), nostalgic forties and, also, many who had not even been born when Estopa released that album debut in, for some, very distant 1999. The day after, the band repeated a concert in what was previously known as Palacio de los Deportes, also with everything sold out, as has been usual in most dates of their long tour

, started three years ago and interrupted by the coronavirus.

At the end of the concert, everything: from a group of tall men singing

like

drunk even some teenage girls, probably still underage, recording a video for TikTok and polling people on what their favorite song of the night had been.

"They have changed the style a bit and they have been updated, but they are still in their style," thinks Macarena, 27, who had never seen Estopa live and went with two friends of similar ages.

"We had older brothers who listened to them," confirms another.

One was able to see them on the same tour, in Valencia, before the pandemic, and she decided to dare to repeat without knowing that the 2020 concert for which they originally bought tickets would not be held until last weekend.

With a starting price of around 40 euros, the youngest of the Muñoz brothers, José (Cornellá, 43 years old), did not hesitate to acknowledge the patience of his audience from the stage:

Nostalgia was one of the most repeated reasons by the youth sector of the public when asked why they had decided to go to the concert.

“We wanted to make a

”, says another 30-year-old girl, who was only 6 when Estopa was founded and went with her lifelong friends from Santander.

The initiatory figures are a constant when talking about how this intergenerational Catalan duo came to the lives of those who were not adults at that time: “I had some older cousins ​​who listened to him”.

The particular use that the Muñoz brothers make of social networks does not go unnoticed, where, among information about their concerts, they share bad jokes, arbitrary occurrences and, of course, something that has already become a classic of every month of June. (Pride month), a meme in itself: the LGTBIQ+ flag with the name “Estopa” not very eagerly superimposed.

pic.twitter.com/8F5ZciqypK

– Estopa (@estopaoficial) June 28, 2020

During confinement, they came to gather up to 175,000 people at the same time in the acoustic concert they gave through their Instagram.

“I think they have been able to communicate well with young people, but with a very analogical vibe, very much in their own way.

No

.

Costumbrista roll to death ”, dictates Salu, 30 years old.

With a welcome to "everyone, everyone and

" that sounded as sincere and little faked as the lyrics of his songs or his request to welcome "Russian and Ukrainian refugees", over two hours, Estopa knew how to please more than their parish and give them the ration they expected of classics from their first albums, without neglecting several songs from

, the work they released in 2019 and that they were presenting.

Everything as if it were taken from a time capsule, except for the careful arrangements provided by the group of musicians they surround themselves with.

padawan rasta braid

and seems the only person who can afford it in the middle of 2022 with dignity.

Beyond his spontaneous use of expressions such as “what are you

to me ”, the generation gap only became really noticeable when the Muñoz, listing several of their idols, mentioned soccer players Romario and Hugo Sánchez, a comment received with such coldness that anyone would say that those people who wore banners with phrases like "I learned bit by bit before I learned

ride a bike" had never heard of such individuals in their lives.

Two people you meet at Bar Manolo

An added value and perhaps capital for Estopa is that, in addition to a songbook that is known even by people who have never stopped to listen to them (

…), The two brothers like each other very well.

Former employees of a Seat assembly line who grew up in the bar that their parents ran, the simplicity with which they present themselves, with which they pat each other on the back when a performance suits them particularly well or with which they joke with

their

it gives an authentic and close image that many other artists would fight for.

“They are not trying to create a brand.

They are countrymen, normal people, guys that you feel could be your friends and that you can find them at Bar Manolo”, believes Salu.

At the concert, they dedicate songs to their grandmother, without whom they say they would be "shit", also to "those who wake up Spain at six in the morning", and throw bottles of water on the track when it seems that someone is giving a yellow

DVD 1126 (30 09 22).

Madrid.

Estopa concert at the Wizink Center.

© LUIS SEVILLANO Luis Sevillano

“Being themselves, they have known how to hook people today, that is very difficult,” says Ismael, Salu's brother, only 18 years old, who was 15 when he actually bought the ticket for the WiZink Center concert.

“Since I was little I listened to Estopa because of my older brothers, even though I didn't understand their lyrics.

I don't think people my age listen to them that much, except at town parties.

They are totally different from the music that is made now.

His classics convey a lot of melancholy to me, because they remind me of when I was a child, although I like the new ones too”, he says.

"It's something very familiar," continues Salu.

“I remember listening to Estopa with our parents on the car radio.

The four friends we had as neighbors in the neighborhood were also listening to Estopa all the time.

There are many memories."

And he remarks:

In the same way that other older people have served as a bridge for Estopa to reach a younger audience, Estopa has also been, in its own way, a transmission belt for another type of knowledge, as another viewer, Marta, 29, illustrates. : “Thanks to them I discovered joints.

That I don't smoke joints, huh?

But I know what they are from their lyrics.”

“What's more, it was at the first concert I went to of theirs that I first smelled joints.

I asked my mother, who accompanied me because she was very small, and she explained it to me, ”she recalls.

Salu also expresses himself in a similar sense: “A few years ago, on a car trip we were taking, we put on Estopa and we realized how infantilized we had the lyrics.

When in

they say 'Shots and more shots in a bar', when I was little I thought they were talking about a shooting!”.

For Marta, whose first physical CD was

(2001), Estopa is associated with a few years of happiness prior to the crisis, like other cultural phenomena of the time that have experienced a resurgence;

see the series

, which still appears for many weeks in the Top 10 of the most consumed on Netflix.

The imprint they left in their time is also being picked up, recently, by Spanish cinema: in Paco Plaza's

(2021), the lyrics of

even have a certain plot weight (the protagonist finds her diary childhood thanks to the musical keys of the chorus), while the director Pilar Palomero (the winner of the Goya for

) has also used his music to set the scene for the teen drama

, which premieres this November.

Sant Jordi a Barcelona with a Madrilenian @c_tangana and some Catalans from Cornellà @estopaoficial

Pucho's golden minute at Sant Jordi.

Magic.

Fancy.

Party.

Historic night.

Celebration.

Catharsis.

Ecstasy.

Thanks for so much art.

pic.twitter.com/mZ4aWav9qJ

– Jordi Évole (@jordievole) April 23, 2022

Even artists who could not be more attached to the present, such as Rosalía, have actively vindicated Estopa: the Catalan, who has just turned 30, sang

a cappella at the Los 40 awards gala and dedicated a few words to the brothers words at his concert this year at the Palau Sant Jordi, in which he recalled, precisely, that the first artists he saw perform there were them.

Another idol of this decade, C. Tangana, brought out Estopa at his concert last April in Barcelona and sang

with them .

After almost 25 years claiming the heritage of quinqui music and rumba, the Muñoz family can be sure that they have also left ample descendants.

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