The night of the signed guitar

There are nights that get organised and nights that simply happen. The 17th Gala Starlite Occident, with Sandra García-Sanjuán and Antonio Banderas as hosts, was one of the second kind: everything that mattered happened off script.

This year I brought more than an appetite for a party. My Experience went into the charity auction: dinner with me at Los Gabrieles, that century-old Madrid tavern with its walls dressed in tiles, where flamenco has always slept; a night at the Hyatt Regency; and an evening at which I will be honoured. And something that matters to me especially: the night does not get lost. An auteur film, a photography book and a private gallery, with a certificate, so that what was lived is kept safe. That part carries the signature of BMC, the house of Dirk Manuel Martens Jiménez, who understands heritage the way I understand dance: what is worth something is looked after so that it lasts.

The Experience found its owner and the whole amount went to the projects of the Fundación Starlite. That was what mattered.

And then the night did as it pleased. Bertín Osborne walked up to the head table to sing Fly Me to the Moon to Michael Bublé, and Bublé, of course, ended up singing with him. Someone put a guitar in front of me and I signed it alongside Michael and Plácido Domingo; Melendi and Miguel Poveda made it sound right there, with no score and no permission, which is how true things sound.

At midnight, Plácido sang Happy Birthday to Antonio. Estrella Morente climbed on stage with Los Alpresa because her body asked for it. That is how all of it went: spontaneous, generous, impossible to repeat.

Thank you to Sandra and Antonio for holding up seventeen years of this night, to the Fundación Starlite for giving it meaning, and to Dirk Manuel and BMC for turning an evening into something that stays.

Peace & Love, always.

Photos: courtesy of Gala Starlite Occident / Fundación Starlite.