The Last of the Line Returns After 30 Years with a New Skin and the Same Old Songs

It began with a greeting. "Good evening, how are you all?" And a roar responded to Manolo García who warmly broke his silence of over three decades at the helm of the band El Último de la Fila. His first concert with Quimi Portet took place on the packed stage of Marenostrum Fuengirola, which came to shed years off or, at least, to do so for a while. And indeed, they succeeded. Artists and audience gave themselves to each other. García sealed it by referring to a classic. Well, two. To Fray Luis de León and then to Unamuno, who after prison and exile, returned to their classes as if nothing had happened. El Último de la Fila paid tribute by stating: "As we were saying yesterday." And added a highly anticipated title, "As we were saying yesterday, 'Dear Milagros'." And so much anticipation burst into applause.

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In front of 18,500 witnesses, Quimi & Manolo, equally important, not only sang a selection of timeless songs, but they sounded like (almost) always. Going to a concert by El Último de la Fila in the 90s was a guarantee - as it was to go to one by Radio Futura or Danza Invisible - and, it can now be said, it still is. Neither García nor Portet are the same yet they are, but yesterday they proved that he who once had, still has. Life is written in songs and, paraphrasing the bolero, 30 years is nothing judging by this first concert of the 2026 tour. Their first words were to introduce 'Milagros', but musically the concert started chronologically and, as a manifesto, with a classic theme from when they were called Los Burros, 'Huesos', the skinniest of our pop until Jarabe de Palo came along. An essential song from over 40 years ago - scary to write it - and which last night symbolized this return to the origins that is this 2026 tour of El Último.

A happy and joyful nostalgia flew over the grand stage by the sea of Fuengirola with songs like 'Aviones planteados', 'Sin llaves' or 'El loco'. Also with the announced 'Dear Milagros', that sad and sonorous letter from the soldier Adrián who made fortune in a Spain where the youth felt absolute detachment from the military service. A mandatory service that, years after this song, would disappear. Thus, those gathered last night, mostly those who did military training, those who opted for alternative social service, those who simply got exempted, and those who wrote letters to their Adrián or called him from a phone booth, belted out this anti-war anthem that last night rhymed with another song they sang next and which was also chanted: "My homeland in my shoes, my hands are my army." And forming a trilogy against war, the peaceful spirit of another song, 'Armed Conflict', more relevant than ever. Although this is almost always the case, unfortunately.

"When we started, in front of 50 or 200 people, Manolo ended the concerts saying: 'Go forth and multiply'. So thank you very much for multiplying"

Quimi Portet

Guitarist and composer

Manolo García didn't stop cheering, encouraging, and connecting with the audience. He asked those in the back row how they were doing. And they applauded wildly for him remembering them. The humor came when Quimi Portet took the microphone and explained the reasons why they had returned after three long decades. "The first is to escape the strict family discipline and the second so that our suffering relatives can get rid of us for a while," said the guitarist and composer humorously, adding that the "most important factor (for the return) is you, really." The audience, of course, was delighted. And right after, he added, "When we started with Los Burros, in front of 50 or 200 people, Manolo ended the concerts saying: 'Go forth and multiply'. So thank you very much for multiplying," stated Portet, to which his colleague García retorted: "The truth is, you've multiplied quite well."

The "intrepid vocalist"

The multiplied had a great time listening to the duo singing with a new skin, less hair, and "18 kilos of hairspray," but with an energy that sounded like always. From an hour before the start of the show, the audience had already completely filled the Marenostrum Fuengirola venue, waiting eagerly for that great scenography presided over by the symbolic fish of the band in different sizes and skewered by the stage to also start singing. By the sea, it seemed a setting designed for Fuengirola. They only lacked the jábega. An atmosphere in which these poets brought out their parapets with poems that tasted like never before of the salt of love. The day threatened rain, but the sky respected it and they brought the warmth that infected everyone present. An audience from all over Andalusia and different parts of Spain - Valencia, Valladolid, Asturias... - who did not want to miss this first concert. Nor did some well-known faces, such as Jordi Évole and Paz Padilla.

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More great hits like 'No me acostumbro', 'Dios de la lluvia', 'Soy un accidente' and a chanted 'Mar antiguo' followed, in which the ocean of heads filled again with mobiles held high to record Manolo García and Quimi Portet singing a lyric that seemed written for last night: "Sad and tired / with old friends / wine and singing."

In the night of García & Portet, there was also room for 'Cuando el mar te tenga', with the entire audience with their arms raised to roar like mistral. And since more than an hour of concert had passed and people were up, came "He who sings scares away his woes" with all attendees in chorus. In that communion, the "intrepid vocalist" - as Quimi dubbed Manolo - took the microphone to proclaim that although it seemed a concert from yesterday, it was today's to be proud of. "We are not going to be 25 years old again, but it doesn't matter, we are awesome right now and we are happier than castanets," he said amid the complicit applause of those present. The next was another emblem, cousin of the previous: 'Sing for me'. With a cane in hand, García sang "walking unhurriedly through time" and asked the audience "sing for me if I am no longer here." Last night they were there, but the audience never stopped singing.

End of the Party

In the final stretch of the two-hour concert, the most energetic songs played and those with which the audience jumped the most, like when recalling the chorus of "the days are gone" ('Lápiz y tinta'); the anthem about when you love for the first time, 'Far from the laws of men' and 'Sara', "sweet Sara" and her "blue secret," with which Manolo García introduced the new guitarist of the band accompanying him, Sara García, his daughter. With the intimacy already at this point of the show, El Último de la Fila sang "take my hand and sleep next to me" to invite everyone to go home for some 'Sweet dreams'. And the band made the motion of leaving. The audience whistled and waited for more songs without moving, but they didn't shout. And it was Manolo himself who came out to set things straight and encourage the audience to eagerly ask for "another, another." And the audience shouted it. "That's better," approved the artist who resumed the party with 'I don't dance to the beat of the drums' to "dislodge the tiles in their path" and come down to sing with the audience.

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Then he got comfortable and brought out a slightly rebellious armchair that resisted him when he tried to move it across the stage. When he got tired of it, he ended up throwing it into the pit. The wheels will have to be changed for the next concert. And probably the armchair too. It must not have remained very intact. Then came the song that many had been waiting for from the beginning. 'Like a donkey tied at the door of the dance', probably the most popular 'hit' of El Último de la Fila, which got everyone trotting to the cry of the dionysian lyrics that, with all reason, remind us that "if in the end it's just four days, why squeeze the lemon?"

Manolo García bid farewell to the audience proclaiming that it had not been a concert of "old songs, but eternal ones"

And linked with the previous, the lyrics of the bar counters, the dumps of love, and the arrows of uncertainty. The legendary 'Insurrection', the band's first big hit, arrived for dessert to prove again that, even when they show their "worst bit", they are the best. Great ending for a concert that warmed up and ended on a high with shouts, this time yes, of "another, another." With the 'setlist' exhausted, they performed a ranchera, the one about "with money or without money, I always do what I want," after proclaiming that it had not been a concert of "old songs, but eternal ones." "Thank you very much and keep multiplying," the band said goodbye. For the next concert, the capacity will have to be expanded.