Dr. Calypso give goodbye concerts in Barcelona

Dr. Ca­lypso, a pi­o­neer Cata­lan Ska group, are play­ing their last ever gigs tonight and Fri­day at the Sala Apolo in Barcelona after a fran­tic 6-month tour to venues all over the coun­try. So much is owed to this Barcelona-based band who started spread­ing Ja­maican rhythms be­fore most bands began using them. They are split­ting up be­cause they don’t want to “turn into di­nosaurs”.

“It doesn’t work like it did in the 90s” they said last March, shortly be­fore be­gin­ning their last tour which in­volved well-at­tended con­certs at dif­fer­ent events, in­clud­ing the live music mar­ket in Vic (Mer­cat de Música Viva) and the Sant Narcís fes­ti­val in Girona. “We all have other re­spon­si­bil­i­ties and it is bet­ter to leave it with a 30th an­niver­sary tour than just wait­ing for it to de­cline.”

The band are let­ting go, happy in the knowl­edge that they stayed true to them­selves to the end.

Dr.​Calypso’s con­tri­bu­tion is easy to spot when you look at the type of band cur­rently pop­u­lar in Cat­alo­nia. “Now, un­like when we started, there are loads of bands with two lead singers and a wind sec­tion. Lots of peo­ple have been in­spired by what we did,” they said.

Tick­ets sold out weeks ago to today’s and Fri­day’s con­certs, which are both due to start at 9:30pm.