Catholic Bar in Manacor: Enter without taking communion

Manacor"The name was agreed upon in a very casual way, at a dinner, while we were listening to the song Catholic Girls, by Frank Zappa; but without any derogatory connotation or to make fun of anyone," recalls Miquel Àngel Bauzà (Manacor, 1967). "We opened in December 1989 in a basement on Miguel de Unamuno Street, without a number; an unoccupied family space that we renovated."

"At that time, there wasn't a bar of those characteristics in Manacor. Now there already is. In fact, we were ahead of our time. It's true that we coexisted with Manolo Badia's Spirits, but it was different," adds Sebastià Gaià Garba (Manacor, 1964), who first as a client and then as one of the managers, lived off this music-cultural oasis every year.

"I worked as a waiter at the Torreblanca Hotel in La Coma. It wasn't a business idea at all. It was what we would have liked to find, but it wasn't there," says Antoni Martí (Manacor, 1968). "The first idea was to eat, but we soon discarded that. Also at the beginning, we were open every day from 1:30 p.m." "We were inspired by a rough bar in Barceloneta: drinking and smoking to while away the evening and escape from the ordinary." "We were more aggressive and eclectic with music than the others. Gato Pérez, The Pogues, and Led Zeppelin could play one after the other on the same night."

Tomeu Caragol and Gustau Fernández devised one of the Católico's strong points: the themed parties. Now a German one, now a Mexican one, then another dedicated to psychedelia... or a nighttime Rúa the day before the official noise festival. It was normal to see that evening 'competition' every year that went from the Spirits to the Católico, in an always complementary procession: "If some of us went from Indians to others, from cowboys, some Romans, others from Asterix's village."

Iconic Christmases

In December 1990, the Villancicos (Christmas Carols) were born, organized by Xavier Ramis, among others. "They were an alternative and free version of the Portocristo Christmas Carols, without any intention of mocking them. Of course, with a corrupt jury," the three of them recall. Their idea, to sing in the most critical and ironic way possible about the social and political events of the year, has survived to this day, now at Can Lliro (after a brief stop at the Sa Pua pub in Portocristo).

The Felanitx sculptor Jaume Canet was a regular at the Manacor oratory. "I remember once setting up a nativity scene made of metal sculptures in the shape of carnivorous plants. But instead, at Christmas they transformed and only ate fish," he recalls. "At first, they were meant to represent birth, growth, maturity, and death; but I arranged them in such a way that they looked like figures in a nativity scene."

"El Católico was more punk than anything... it was iconic. I still have an ashtray," adds Canet, who used to go "with a mohawk that I could hold up with soap" and who admits, a little sadly, that he doesn't remember half the nights, "because they were years when I drank a lot... the owner, in there after closing time."

Live music concerts were also organized at the Católico. Some were irreverent, others more classic, but always with the desire to occupy a space that was very rare in Manacor in the early 90s. Not in vain, it was on the Católico stage (you can still see the video on YouTube) where Roger Pistola made his debut, when he was still in class with Damià Timoner and the guitar made two of him.

Sebastià Amer Garaña, specifies that "we went for the music, but above all because we knew everyone and felt at home. It was practically the same people who frequented the Spirits and made the nightly rounds from one place to another."

Leftist Minutes

"We never had any problems with the neighbors. No one called the police about the noise, although it's true that for a while they systematically showed up every weekend. We held Esquerra Republicana events, and they told us that people were coming who were identified as being from Terra Lliure."

Shortly before the end of the century, and with the transfer of nightlife from Callejón de Portocristo to the city (where a dozen pubs opened in just two years), the original partners wanted to sell the business. It was an initial "match ball" that they managed to save. "In 1999, several friends and I took it over, basically because otherwise, we didn't know where we were going to go," Garba smiles.

But it was a mirage. By 2003, the Católico Bar's location, too far from the city center compared to other establishments, had become unsustainable. One of the most memorable nightclubs in the contemporary history of Manacor had finally passed into history. The history of a small town that was beginning to clear its doors.