Shakira opens European residency with a thrilling night in Madrid
Eight years after her last concert in Spain, Shakira returned to Madrid on Friday night to open her European residency of the “Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran World Tour”. At the Shakira Stadium, specially built for the occasion as part of Macondo Park at Iberdrola Music, more than 55,000 fans gathered for the first of twelve nights. What followed was a two-hour journey through more than three decades of Shakira, in which rock, pop, Latin, reggaeton, Arabic influences and dance continually flowed into one another.
The evening began with “La Huesera”, followed by “La Fuerte”, which set the show in motion with a production that constantly changed shape. Shakira moved across the stage with her band, dancers and a long catwalk in a production in which music and visuals were closely intertwined. “Girl Like Me”, “Las de la intuición”, “Estoy aquí”, “Empire”, “Inevitable”, “Te felicito” and “TQG” brought together different phases of her career. The setlist therefore ranged from her early Spanish-language work to the songs with which she had once again reached a worldwide audience in recent years.
For her return to Spain, the Colombian singer had clearly not opted for a nostalgic greatest-hits show. Old favourites shared the stage with more recent material and songs that had helped redefine her musical direction in recent years. During “Don’t Bother” she picked up the guitar, while for “Can’t Remember to Forget You” she took her place behind the drums. “Te felicito” brought the reggaeton side of her repertoire to the fore, while “Acróstico” provided a more intimate moment. Her sons Milan and Sasha also appeared on the screens.
Visually, too, the production was constantly in motion. Shakira appeared in a wide range of outfits and transformed throughout the evening from rock singer to Latin artist and from dancer to performer. Her opening outfit was an ETRO flight suit featuring the fashion house’s Paisley Jungle pattern in lilac, red and pink, developed in collaboration with Swarovski and covered in hundreds of thousands of crystals. Later, during “Acróstico”, she appeared in a bespoke golden creation by Gaurav Gupta, designed especially for the tour, in which a brass Lunar Wolf Breastplate was combined with a handwoven silk brocade skirt from Banaras. According to its creators, more than 500 hours of work went into the design.
Dance meanwhile formed a major part of the performance. Shakira moved from belly dance and salsa to reggaeton and African dance styles, continually using the catwalk to seek contact with different sections of the audience. During “Soltera”, the now familiar pole-dance routine appeared, after which the show shifted once again towards the big singalong numbers. The physical intensity of the performance was striking, particularly as the singer remained almost constantly in motion throughout the evening. EL PAÍS described her dancing as exceptionally intense, while The Times also highlighted the combination of belly dance, salsa, twerking and the many costume changes.
One of the more personal moments came during “Acróstico”, the song Shakira wrote for her children. The song provided a moment of calm within a show otherwise heavily built around rhythm, movement and spectacle. By contrast, there were moments when the stadium became a giant dance floor, such as during “Hips Don’t Lie”, “La Tortura” and “Waka Waka (This Time for Africa)”.
“Dai Dai”, her collaboration with Burna Boy released on 15 May 2026 as the official song of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, also featured towards the end of the show. In Madrid, the song was linked to the football fever that was still fresh in the memory. Shakira made explicit reference to Spain as world champions. The song had meanwhile become a global success and, according to FIFA, had taken on a prominent role around the World Cup since its release.
For the audience, Shakira’s return to Madrid was also more than an ordinary concert. “Good evening, Madrid! Welcome to our European residency!! I can’t believe I’m here! It feels like a dream!” Shakira told the audience from the stage. She referred to the changes that had taken place in her life since her previous performance in Spain and concluded her speech with the words: “There is nothing more beautiful than a wolf returning to her pack! Awooo! Madrid, tonight we are one!”
That wolf ran through the evening as a recurring symbol. It referred to “Loba”, but also to the image of a woman reclaiming her own strength after a difficult period. That theme formed a clear thread running through “Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran”, the album on which the current tour is largely based. In Madrid, the songs were not performed as separate chapters, but as parts of a show in which Shakira brought together her personal history, her music and her current artistic identity.
The finale began with “Te dejo Madrid”, a notable gesture towards the city that had not seen her perform live for eight years. “Suerte (Whenever, Wherever)”, “Dai Dai” and “Waka Waka (This Time for Africa)” followed, before “Loba” and “Shakira: BZRP Music Sessions #53” brought the evening to its climax. During the latter song, prop money rained down from the sides of the stage onto the catwalk, fitting the now familiar refrain about women who no longer cry but invoice.
Shakira’s return to Spain was therefore not merely a concert, but the culmination of a much larger event. Macondo Park had been built around the stadium, a temporary cultural city where visitors could enjoy music, exhibitions, talks, workshops, film, gastronomy and literature alongside the concert. The name referred to Macondo, the fictional village in Gabriel García Márquez’s “One Hundred Years of Solitude”. The site covered around 220,000 square metres and was entirely designed around Shakira’s world and Latin American culture.
The residency was initially planned on a much smaller scale, but was expanded to twelve concerts following overwhelming demand. The series runs from 18 September to 11 October and is the only European stop on the “Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran World Tour”. The specially built stadium has a capacity of around 55,000 spectators per night.
Madrid therefore received a Shakira show on Friday night in which past and present stood side by side. From “Estoy aquí” and “Hips Don’t Lie” to “Te felicito”, “Acróstico”, “Dai Dai” and “Shakira: BZRP Music Sessions #53”, the singer demonstrated just how broad her repertoire had become. The production was large, colourful and physically demanding, while her instantly recognisable voice and movements connected the different eras. After eight years away, Shakira was back in Spain, and the first chapter of her twelve-night Madrid run ended with a stadium singing back to her without restraint.
