Shakira turns Madrid into her new home: her awaited European residency has already begun

Eight years after her last visit to Spain, Shakira has returned to Madrid. And she has not done so to offer a single concert, but to settle for several weeks in the capital with a residency that makes her return one of the great musical events of the autumn.

The first date was this Friday, September 18, at the Shakira Stadium, the temporary venue set up at Iberdrola Music, in Villaverde. It will be followed by eleven other concerts on September 19, 20, 25, 26 and 27 and October 2, 3, 4, 9, 10 and 11. The space has a capacity for more than 50,000 people per night.

A residency tailored for Shakira

The formula is different from that of a conventional tour. Instead of passing through different European cities, Shakira has chosen Madrid as the only European stop of this leg of the Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran World Tour and has turned the venue into an experience designed specifically for the occasion.

The so-called Shakira Stadium is part of a larger project, Macondo Park, conceived as a cultural space around the concerts. Music, gastronomy, fashion, art, literature, cinema and activities for different audiences complete a proposal that aims to extend the experience beyond the two hours of the show.

And the scale is considerable: the Madrid City Council estimates an influx of around 57,000 daily attendees and has prepared a special mobility and security plan. The concerts are scheduled between 9:00 PM and 11:00 PM, with doors opening at 8:00 PM.

From Estoy aquí to Las mujeres ya no lloran

If there is one thing that explains the anticipation around these twelve nights, it is that Shakira arrives in Madrid with a repertoire capable of covering practically her entire career.

The Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran tour takes her latest album, released in 2024, as its starting point, but the show also revives songs that are part of the collective memory of several generations. Among the songs expected in the repertoire are Estoy aquí, Hips Don't Lie, Antología, Waka Waka, La Bicicleta, Monotonía, TQG or the BZRP Music Sessions #53, along with songs from her most recent stage.

It is precisely this combination of nostalgia and present that defines this new stage. The Shakira who arrives in Madrid is, at the same time, the artist who turned her first hits into international anthems and the singer who has managed to return to the center of musical conversation with a new generation of songs.

A return to Spain eight years later

Shakira's last major tour in Spain was El Dorado World Tour, in 2018. Since then, her relationship with the country has also been marked by her personal life, but her return now occurs from an eminently musical dimension and with a production of a very different scale.

Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran has also marked a new stage in her career. The album and tour were born at a particularly important moment for the artist, after several years of enormous media exposure, and songs like the collaboration with Bizarrap or "TQG" with Karol G helped connect Shakira with an audience that had not necessarily grown up listening to her first albums.

Now, that story has culminated in Madrid.

A city transformed into a stage

The choice of Madrid is not casual. For almost a month, the city will be the only European point of this part of the tour and the Iberdrola Music area will be transformed to host a show that aims to function as more than a succession of concerts.

The project also reflects an increasingly present trend in the music industry: residencies as major events capable of concentrating thousands of spectators in the same city for weeks. In Shakira's case, the concept is taken a step further with its own venue and an experience that tries to build an entire universe around the artist.

And this Friday, the final countdown began. The show is scheduled to start at 8:30 PM this Saturday, with Shakira as the headliner, on the first of twelve nights in Madrid.

Madrid listens to Shakira again. And this time it won't be just for one night.