Thanks, Mobo, for being so good

The most interesting music festival held in the Balearic Islands since the time of the brilliant and chaotic Isladencanta is undoubtedly Mobo. Talent, musical innovation, maximum respect for local production and quality. Far from other commercial proposals, which base their lineup on artists who can draw the biggest crowds, even if, all in all, it makes no sense. Nothing to say if these massive festivals like Mallorca Live, which we have all attended when we liked an artist, also exist. They have to be there.

What doesn't fit so well is seeing public resources water a commercial project like Mallorca Live with more than 2.5 million euros, which charges a lot at the door. If the artists who go there are so good, and their sponsors so powerful, perhaps public resources shouldn't be dedicated with such enthusiasm to formats that their promoters make purely for business. Or so defend the liberal politicians who coincidentally inflate them with subsidies.

On the other hand, Mobo is something else. And for this reason, because it is a smaller, closer, more genuine, and more essential format – if we agree that all of the above is essential – it should have much more help. And this, despite the fact that its promoters have at no time spoken of this reason for closing up shop and making us sad, but rather of a lack of succession. However, if there are more public resources, more institutional support, it is simpler to find people who want to take the lead and suffer. Because these committed projects are about suffering. We are left without the smell of the earth and brotherhood while the music plays. We will be left with the smell of ultra-subsidized sunscreen.