SATURDAY, JANUARY 3, 2015

People listen to a concert at the “Costello Club” in Madrid on December 5, 2014. — AFP photos Groups of people chat in front of a club entrance in Madrid. Adios, Movida: The crisis killing Madrid’s nightlife adrid is famed worldwide for its wild nightlife-but locals “Madrid used to be a city like Berlin or London are now, full of business is striking. “Thursday used to be like part of the week- say recession, unemployment and higher sales tax are opportunities. It used to have more on offer,” said one bar-goer, end,” with the bars packed, said Marin. “Now it is just another day Mchanging partying habits in the Spanish capital. “There’s Juan Canadas, strolling in Madrid’s trendy Malasana district. “It of the week. That is the most remarkable change we have seen.” no denying the crisis. It affects the whole country, and Madrid’s has lost a bit of its magic.” The crisis drove up unemployment to a Madrid city hall insists it is working to support restaurants and bars and nightclubs are no exception,” said Dani Marin, joint own- current rate of 24 percent and prompted tough economic austeri- bars, which it says are two of its main tourist draws. er of Costello, one of the city centre’s hundreds of drinking estab- ty measures by the conservative government. These included With fewer drinkers coming out to play, bar owners are adapt- lishments. On a Friday night around Christmas, its basement raising sales tax from eight to 21 percent in 2012, which has ing to survive. “We have been reinventing ourselves, doing all throbs with live rock music, while upstairs drinkers chat leaning cramped consumption. “I love Madrid. At our age you find every- sorts of things,” German Hughes, manager of the La Palma cafe, on the bar to the mellower rhythms of a DJ. It is a typical bar thing you want,” said another festive local, Quiara Lopez, a stu- which has been open for 20 years. “We used to have three con- scene in a country devoted to partying out on the town but peo- dent of 20, out for a night on the town with a friend. “You have all certs here a week. Now we have five, plus two book launches and ple in the business say Spaniards are spending less on that pas- kinds of places to go and you can do what you want. But you have a play. We are putting on more activities so that people have time. to watch what you spend.” more incentives to come.” After six hard years, figures suggest “Consumption has fallen a lot,” said Marin. “Sometimes the bar that consumer spending is slowly taking off again in Spain. As the still gets as busy and lively as it was six years ago, but overall our Shorter weekends economy gradually heats back up, bar owners hope this city’s revenues are down by about half.” After the death of longtime With 75,000 people working in them, Madrid’s bars, casinos, nightlife will do the same. dictator Francisco Franco in 1975 the Spanish capital responded theatres, restaurants and nightclubs are crucial for the region. “Madrid has changed enormously since the Movida,” said to the country’s newfound freedom with an explosion in creativi- They generate up to 7.5 billion euros ($9.1 billion) in revenues a Hughes. “But we who work in nightlife are continuing to fight. We ty in theatre, music and nightlife dubbed “La Movida Madrilena”, year, about 4.7 percent of the region’s economy, according to continue to believe that like everything in life, this is part of a which loosely translates as the Madrid scene. Times have some estimates. The decline in nightlife has erased nearly one cycle that soon will turn better.” — AFP changed, however. The economic crisis that erupted in 2008 due percentage point from the region’s output, said Vicente Pizcueta, to the collapse of a decade-long property bubble altered things. spokesman for a Madrid leisure business association. The drop in Erasure revels in synth-pop roots for new year

rasure a year ago released a Christmas album, but with guitars. Last year’s “Snow Globe” was among the most unique the latest holiday season upon us, the duo’s biggest sur- for Erasure, as the duo created a synth-pop Christmas out of Eprise was not a Yuletide carol but a celebration of synth- covers of traditional carols as well as original songs. pop’s roots. Performing before a sold-out and dance-sweaty crowd of 3,000 at New York’s Terminal 5 club on Tuesday, Sleeveless shirt, gold shorts singer Andy Bell announced that Erasure would play an old In an intriguing musical reference for an Abba disciple, Bell favorite for the first time in 20 years. That song was a respect- performed at Terminal 5 in sleeveless Joy Division shirt, a ful cover of “Voulez-Vous” by Abba, who in the 1970s pio- shout-out to the bleak Manchester rockers who were reborn neered the synth-pop sound of instantly danceable keyboards with keyboards as New Order in 1980. Bell also sported infini- that was embraced a decade later by chart-topping, mostly tesimal metallic gold shorts, showing off his body as he British acts such as Erasure, Depeche Mode and the Pet Shop moved to the rhythm between two female dancers in giant Boys. kinky wigs. Clarke, in true synth-pop keyboardist decorum, Erasure devoted an entire EP to Abba renditions in 1992 at kept to himself in the corner behind strobe lights. the pinnacle of the duo’s fame. In New York, Bell and key- Erasure’s concert Wednesday will have an added dimen- boardist Vince Clarke obliged the crowd-most old enough to sion, besides the New Year’s celebrations, as two members of remember them when they started-by performing a string of the American synth-poppers Book of Love will reunite to per- Erasure’s own hits including “Oh L’Amour,” “Chains of Love,” form an opening set. Book of Love built a niche audience in “A Little Respect” and “Blue Savannah.” Erasure will play a sec- the 1980s by touring with Depeche Mode and-more signifi- ond show at Terminal 5 for New Year’s Eve, the final date of a cantly in retrospect-broke taboos of the era by openly dis- four-month tour of North America and Europe in support of cussing the AIDS crisis in the dance-club hit “Pretty Boys and the duo’s 16th studio album, “The Violet Flame,” a collection Pretty Girls.” More recently, Bell has spoken out about being of dance anthems with introspective ballads cast into the mix. HIV positive in an effort to build awareness about preventing Despite the devotion in concert to old hits, Erasure’s career the virus that leads to AIDS. — AFP has not been without experimentation, with Bell and Clarke in the late 1990s bringing in long synthesizer solos, Gospel Andy Bell, the singer of Erasure, performs at the Terminal 5 singers and even-to the dismay of synth-pop purists-acoustic club in New York on December 30, 2014. — AFP