La Merce – Fireworks
in Barcelona the last weekend in September.
In 1995, wife and I took a three-week trip to Spain and France. When planning the trip I looked for festivals that may occur in areas around our planned stops. In Fodor’s Spain 1995, in the sections on festivals, only one festival appeared to coincide with our plans, the festival of La Merce, on the weekend of 23/24 September in Barcelona. The book stated that there were fireworks but didn’t mention what was in store. What an incredible experience it would turn out to be
for a fireworks nut!
While the Barcelonans seemed to take La Merce pretty seriously, they seemed surprised that a tourist would actually come to their city for the festival. Many of the other tourists we met during our stay weren’t even aware there was a festival going on!This has changed over the last few years as we found during return trips that the city now full of tourists who actually go for the festival.
The festival of La Merce celebrates the Catalunian Princess, La Merced’s
protectorship of the city.
The festivities started on Wednesday night, when we arrived. As we were checking into our hotel, in the center of town,
I heard the unmistakable “boom – boom” of salutes being shot.
I ran downstairs to the front desk and asked what was going on. The bell captain said that it was most likely some practice going on at the harbor
but didn’t think there was anything scheduled for that night. The sounds lasted only about 15 minutes or so.
Thursday night we went exploring, asking people about the “fuegos artificiales” and mostly getting blank reactions and shrugged shoulders. The city was buzzing with bands playing a wide spectrum of music in most of the major squares around the downtown area. One waiter suggested we get the local newspaper which should list the weekend’s events, their times and locations.
(“Fuegos artificiales” was what our Spanish/English dictionary has as a subtext translation of fireworks. “Pirotecnica” seemed to get a better response as did “Boom-Boom” with lots of hand gestures, most likely due to my attempts at speaking Spanish.)
El Correfoc
In the Friday newspaper there was a listing of the events for the weekend with a big full page spread on Saturday night focusing on “El Correfoc’, ” which looked to be very interesting.
Our Spanish left much to be desired but we figured out that this was a parade made up of 400 “Diablos” (devils) and 21 “Dracs” (dragons). The paper used terms like “Usan ropa no inflamable” and “La Pirotecnica,” which set my mind to thinking of a parade with fire breathing dragons and devils using fireworks in the traditional American sense that people would be watching from the street as the parade marched on. Were we in for a surprise!
We went to the square by the Cathedral about 5 p.m. Saturday to see the “Dracs” on display prior to the parade. This is in the “Bari Gothic” or old quarter of Barcelona.
The Dracs were paper mache figures in various sizes (I’d estimate 5 to 20 feet long, and 6 to 10 feet tall) and made up of various animal forms, most were dragons, but there were boars and even a turtle, all very stylized and almost comical in appearance. Some were on wheels, others were worn by the Diablos who made up the “Las Colles” sponsored by the local neighborhoods.
I noticed that there were burn holes in the fabric drapes around some of the dragon heads and they all had streaks and dark stains from smoke. The people who made up Las Colles were all dressed in heavy cotton clothes and many carried leather gloves. These people were the Diablos mentioned in the newspaper.
There were people gathering, many with snare and other marching drums, all clothed in devil costumes of heavy cotton. Back out on the square there was a large stage set up. As the hours passed toward nightfall, the stage filled with drum sets. To one side of the square, a large fenced staging area for Las Colles, Diablos and Dracs was set up. Opening on to the square was a Disneyesque wooden gate with a dragon coiled at the top and to the side of it was the
shield of Barcelona done in lance work. You could drive a semi truck through the gates.
As dark fell, the crowd swelled to well over 50,000 people, all very civilized and polite to one another but packed into the square. We don’t know how many people were present along the parade route but it appeared to be about 5 miles long, winding through the Gothic quarter.
Whole generations of families and lots and lots of children were present. My wife and I noted that the children seemed to represent a focus to all the activities; parents were trying to get even the very young as close to the action as possible.
When night finally fell, the excitement in the crowd picked up. We were about 100 yards from the gates, right in the middle of the square. The lights lit the stage and 20 or so young men came out on stage. They began drumming out a repeating cadence fully amplified that filled the square and the environs for blocks around. After warming up the crowd, they stopped and a speaker read off the names of Los Colles for about 15 minutes. The crowd cheered for their favorites as they were
mentioned. (It could have been football team rosters for all I know!)
There was a prayer for peace in Bosnia and then the lance work was lit off. The people all started to sing a song which I assume was an anthem of the City. The lance work contained beautiful blues, yellows, and whites.
When the shield had finished, there was a pause of a few minutes and then the gates cracked open. Behind the gates, there erupted some aerial salutes, a shower of comets and mines which lasted for ten minutes and filled the square with smoke. I’ve never seen so many people so close to the shoot site before. The colors were fabulous and there were many comets with spiral tails and shells of turbillions all firing right over our heads. More salutes followed as the gates fully opened onto the crowd that had filled the square
We knew the parade was to start out from the Gate. As we looked around, it became evident that the route was directly through the crowd! As the fireworks were going off from the top of the Gate, many people in the crowd wrapped their faces in handkerchiefs and scarves, pulled down hats, and otherwise covered their hair and faces. Even the children were bundled up by their parents.
(In the following paragraphs the terms are given in Spanish then in Catalunyan
and are excerpted from the local newspaper.)
The drumming started in earnest and the first of the Diablos appeared. They had long lances called macos or cetrots. Macos used a single carretilla which was swung over the Diablo’s head on the end of a lance. The cetrots looked more like a candelabra with 6 to 12 carretilla attached. The carretilla were actually a 1 inch gerb, 6 inches long which terminated in a salute.
There was another type that looked like a squirrel cage or lamp shade with rows of the carretilla fixed above one another, driving it like a Catherine wheel around a central spindle. The Diablo would begin to dance and spin the pole, spraying the shower of sparks directly into the crowd. Actually, everyone was dancing at this time, in unison, an amazing effect, with the devils pushing through the crowd trying to spray everyone with sparks. The carretilla would terminate with the bang of a salute, which, likely as not, would go off right in your ear. As the Diablos made there way into the crowd, the square would be illuminated by the carretillas, there could be as little as 10 Diablos in one group, the next could be 30 or more dancing out of the gates of hell with their macos ablaze.
After a few groups fought their way through the crowd, dispersing them with the macos, a Drac appeared, with more carretillas fixed with clips to various parts of their bodies. They would push these through the people who crowded around the Dracs as close as they could get. After a few of the Dracs and Las Colles went by, things began to pick up. The drumming worked the crowd into a frenzy. The Colles appeared more rapidly. The Colles which had moved out of the square lit up the parade route with fireworks. Some were followed by the people in the crowd, fan clubs we guessed.
The more elaborate Dracs issued blue, purple, and orange smoke along with the carretillas.
Each of Las Colles consisted of the Diablos leading the way with drums, followed by a couple of people with flares or other types of punks. After
the Diablos, or if present, the Drac, was a modified shopping cart or wheelbarrow. Some of the carts were completely shielded with painted plywood, while
others were simply swaddled in burlap. These contained the carretilla. The people attending the carts would rush up after the carretillas would
burn out and explode and change them. They then set them afire with the punks, and the Diablo or Drac would push into the crowd, spraying everyone
with sparks.
Each of the carts had a pole attached with a blinking light, like those used by runners at night. Every so often, and always after the Dracs, was a Diablo with a whistle who would act as a traffic cop, keeping the groups of Diablos separated. Amazing that they had any order at all considering the rush of the crowds!
We got caught up in the melee like everyone and were pushed into Dracs and Diablos as the crowd pushed and seethed. We wore only cotton and wool, but we didn’t have any head cover like the rest of the crowd. So, as we were jostled around, we kept checking each other for stray sparks, especially in my wife’s hair (I’m bald and had my hat on). As I felt the hot sparks on my neck, I’d pull up the collar on my sport jacket. My wife pulled her wool cardigan over her head when things got really hot. It was a real kick to dive in with the rest of the crowd.
As things picked up, the people in the crowd started to tackle the Diablos and were charging into the showers of sparks. After about an hour of this I figured we were only about half way through the parade. We were getting pretty tired and ducked out to the sidelines to watch and let the younger people in the crowd tear it up. What a night! A post will follow that covers the Sunday night’s (9/24) Piromusical and “Un nuevo record Guinness”, in which over 270,000 bengalas or sparklers were lit simultaneously.