"The concerts will be like meeting for a paella with friends you haven't seen in a while"

Yesterday's blasphemy is today's blessing. El Último de la Fila, the musical duo formed by Manolo García (Barcelona, 69 years old) and Quimi Portet (from the same city and two years younger), are eating their words and will return to the stage next year. After nearly three decades off the bill, one of the most iconic groups in Spanish pop-rock is reuniting for a tour, performing in nine cities in 2026.

They come together with renewed enthusiasm and the debut of some new songs, as announced yesterday by García and Portet in a large press conference. With their anti-diva image, which has become one of their trademarks, they approach the return as a plan of "a group of friends meeting again to have a paella, dance, drink, and sing some songs because they haven't seen each other in a while."

"Life goes on and things happen. You can't be inflexible about anything. Returning excites us greatly, it's obvious. Two years ago, we revisited songs, which allowed us to reconnect. That recording process enabled us to work together again, and that's where the idea of presenting our music anew germinated," they claim.

As artists with humble roots, they want to lead by example and ensure tickets are affordable for everyone. Prices will range between 65 and 90 euros. They don't want to appear like García's beloved band, The Clash, who boasted of their proletarian origins and then fell into blatant contradictions. "Raising ticket prices based on demand, rewarding those who act fastest, as is done with trains and hotels, is an ultra-capitalist modality that we find repugnant," García asserts.

They promise the repertoire will be simple: they will play the songs they love most, which are also adored by their audience, without shying away from some tracks by Los Burros and Los Rápidos, the groups that preceded El Último de la Fila, although they do not intend to parody themselves. Reviving times that won't return is far from their intention. "'Insurrección' [one of their iconic songs], I don't know; one becomes insurrectionary as best as one can. Resurrect? We resurrect just enough; that's more complicated," says Manolo García.

About recording something new? "Yes, there's something. Quimi has an unstoppable compositional drive," the vocalist argues, explaining that the tour took shape while they recorded 'Desbarajuste piramidal' in 2023, which gathers 24 of their most emblematic songs.

Faithful to the idea of having fun and taking a break, García and Portet view their tour as a cleansing therapy from all the filth, fury, and noise we endure daily. "People are immersed in a lot of nonsense, disgusting, suffocating things that constantly bombard citizens. We're all fed up. People need, from time to time, to say: 'For God's sake, life is short!' And we will try to make that moment a bit of laughter and joy."

The authors of anthems like 'Querida Milagros', 'Aviones plateados', or 'Como un burro amarrado en la puerta de un baile', García and Portet are committed to giving oxygen to popular music, aware that in these times of immediacy and new forms of entertainment, music dissolves into an amorphous mass of social networks, the internet, video games, and other distractions. "For our generation, music was everything. For some disturbed individuals, even more than that. The radio, vinyl, and cassettes opened new worlds. Today, formats have changed, yes, but that need to connect is still there," they state.

The tour will kick off on April 25 in Fuengirola (Málaga), and continue at the Olympic Stadium of Montjuic in Barcelona (May 3), in Roquetas de Mar (Almería, May 16), in Madrid, at a venue to be confirmed (May 23), Bilbao (May 30), A Coruña (June 13), Avilés (Asturias, June 20), the Estadio de La Cartuja in Seville (June 27), and Valencia (July 4).