“This concert in Madrid is the last of my life and therefore the most important. The one that in a few years I will remember with more emotion”, said Joaquín Sabina this Sunday in front of 12,000 people at the closing of the tour ‘Hola y adiós’ which, in his words, has also been his farewell to the stage.
In an emotionally charged show at the Movistar Arena, the singer born in Úbeda (Jaén) 76 years ago, has given “an enormously grateful farewell” for having seen “his songs grow”, which “in a mysterious way”, he stressed, have “slipped into the sentimental memory of several generations”.
Sabina gives his “last and most important concert” of his life
The last night… and a full heart forever ❤️🔥
A thousand thanks for everything, Joaquín Sabina, you are a legend of the Movistar Arena and of music! pic.twitter.com/sg1KvFvVwQ
– Movistar Arena Spain (@MovistarArenaEs) November 30, 2025
Among those attending the concert were politicians Alberto Núñez Feijóo and Borja Sémper.
As well as the artists Víctor Manuel and Ana Belén, Dani Martín, Ara Malikian, Fernando León de Aranoa, Manuel Carrasco, David Trueba, Clara Lago, Alejo Estivel and Vanesa Martín, according to sources from the organization.
“This tour that was called ‘Hola y adiós’ has already gone halfway around the world – [there have been 71 concerts with more than 700,000 tickets sold] and tonight it’s just called ‘adiós’,” Sabina said in a broken voice.
The singer came on stage just 9 minutes later than the appointed time (20:30h) and after the broadcasting of a video on the big screens surrounding the stage with the song ‘Un último vals’.
More than two hours later, a Joaquín Sabina who did not hide his tears – neither his musicians nor many of the concert attendees – said goodbye amidst standing ovations.
Between ‘Yo me bajo en Atocha’ (‘Enemigos íntimos’ 1998) and ‘Princesa’ (‘Juez y Parte’, 1985), the last song, Sabina has made a review of songs from many of the 17 albums released since the late 70s, when he began his career as a singer-songwriter.
In total there have been 23 songs – four performed by members of his band – including the much-chanted ‘Calle Melancolía’ (‘Malas compañías’ 1980), which he said was the second song he wrote in his life, 40 years ago, and that he wanted to take the whim of bringing out for this last tour after “looking in the trunk of old songs, rusty and semi-forgotten”.
Another of the great moments of the night was when he recounted the genesis of another of his best-known songs.
“Chavela told me that she lived in the ‘Bulevar de los sueños rotos’ and I thought she was giving me a wonderful verse and that it deserved a song,” he has explained about the song that appeared on the 1994 album ‘Esta boca es mía’.
“I started to write it in the notebook that I always carry with me, and before anyone else I had the honor of singing it to Chavela Vargas, just the two of us, looking into her eyes,” he added before starting the song with the audience on their feet.
The album that gave him a massive success in 1999, ’19 días y 500 noches’, has been one of the most remembered during the night, with the homonymous song that gave it its name along with ‘Ahora que…’, ‘De purísima y oro’, ‘Una canción para la Magdalena’ and ‘Noches de boda’, authentic hymns that have been massively chanted.
Also from the 90’s, specifically from 1996 is ‘Yo, Mi, Me, Conmigo’, another of the great protagonists of the night (‘Y sin embargo’, ‘Tan joven y tan viejo’ and ‘Contigo’, which alternated with hymns such as ‘Y nos dieron las diez’ (‘Física y química’, 1992).
It is not the end of his artistic life
At this time, Joaquín Sabina says goodbye to the stage in Madrid. It is the last concert of his ‘Hola y adiós’ tour.
All the details with @raul_portero_ https://t.co/naWgyi6usv pic.twitter.com/zTvS3MU7TW
– Telediarios de TVE (@telediario_tve) November 30, 2025
Icon of the musical canallismo to this and the other side of the Atlantic, Sabina has climbed this Sunday for the last time on stage with his concert at the Movistar Arena in Madrid, but that, as indicated by the artist himself and subscribes his entourage, does not mean the end of his artistic facet.
It was in July 2024 when he announced in a statement his intention to say goodbye to the big stages.
In less than 24 hours, more than 200,000 tickets had already been sold for his tour in Spain alone. A tour that kicked off in February in America.
Just a few months before that announcement, he turned 75, after having accumulated too many health problems, such as the stroke he suffered in 2001, which made him rethink the rogue life that fueled many of his songs.
Some of the most recent medical scares happened live, as when in 2020 at the then Wizink Center (now Movistar Arena), he fell into the pit from almost two meters high, resulting in several traumatisms, a hospital admission to the ICU and two interventions.
Now Sabina puts a break in his career, according to his declared intentions, away from the stage.
Filed as: Sabina last concert
With information from EFE
