Oques Grasses say goodbye with four sold-out Olympic Stadium shows

Oques Grasses, one of the most popular bands in Catalonia, is bidding farewell with a four-day concert series at Barcelona's Olympic Stadium.

The band played their first show Wednesday night, October 7, offering an energetic and joyful concert to thousands of fans eager to see the band live one last time. 

"It seems that it cannot be, fourteen years later that we are here," lead singer Josep Montero said to the audience at the end of the performance. "It is thanks to you that we are here singing these songs."

The series was supposed to open Monday, October 5, but that performance was postponed until Thursday, October 8, due to weather forecasts. The final two shows will be performed on October 9 and 10. 

The venue is expecting nearly 220,000 people in total, tying the record set by Coldplay. 

All four concerts sold out in record time. The first date announced, October 10, had tickets sell out in just 20 minutes. For the second date, October 9, tickets sold out in 19 minutes. When the band added two more shows for October 5 and 7 last year, those tickets went in less than an hour.

Thus, the band closes out a career of more than a decade that took the band from Osona, a county in central Catalonia, to venues across all of Spain and the world.

From Osona to Olympic Stadium

Josep Montero, an electrician by trade, formed the band in 2010. Its mix of pop, reggae, funk, electronic and urban music, made the band beloved by fans. Yet, it was Montero's sense of humor, sensitivity and view on everyday life that allowed the band to reach a broad and diverse audience.

"Life is full of beginnings and endings and I want to think that this is what makes it unique and beautiful," Montero said at the end of the concert Wednesday. 

The bands 2012 debut album, "Un dia no sé com," included "Passos importants" and "Cul," which are still staples of its live shows. The 2019 album "Fans del sol" brought anthems such as "Sta guai,"and "In the night," while "A tope amb la vida" (2021) cemented the group's place in Catalan music.

In 2023, the band sold out the Palau Sant Jordi, Barcelona's indoor arena, becoming the first band formed in the 21st century to do so with only Catalan songs. After a three-year creative break, the seven-member group released "Fruit del deliri" in 2024, its latest album.

The directors of the band's record label, Halley Records, credit the band’s success to "the truth of their art, the depth of their lyrics, and the shared courage of the artist and their accompanying team." 

They describe Montero as a "genius" with an "inimitable talent." 

"There is no memory without emotion, and emotion is Oques Grasses' strong suit," they said.

Àlex Valverde, a Pompeu Fabra University researcher who studies communication, called the band a "perfect example" of recent trends in Catalan-language music. 

He noted that the group announces news on Instagram first, and mainstream media then picks it up. 

"They are digital natives," he said. He also pointed to FOMO, or the fear of missing out, as a key to the band's success.

"It is a feeling present in many major tours, and one that can be seen in the frenzy sparked by the Oques Grasses announcement," he said. Even so, he said, there is a pull to see favorite artists in person. 

"It's almost a communal activity," he said, and even more so for a band that is saying farewell and shares such strong emotional bonds with its listeners.

The streaming numbers

The band's streaming numbers are also striking. "Sort de tu," entered Spotify's weekly top 100 for Barcelona in April 2024 and stayed for 83 consecutive weeks, a record for a Catalan-language song, according to the platform's data.

The band has reached 24.4 million streams, with its most-streamed song on Spotify "La gent que estimo," with 39.3 million plays.