Summer 2010. The first time I heard Mitropano up close at the Ayia Napa stadium, when he came with Peggy Zina. A child from Liopetri was sitting behind us and shouted at him: "You are big, you are huge". I laughed out loud, but I knew he was absolutely right!
Summer 2011. I saw him again at the Antonis Papadopoulos Stadium, when he came to sing with Giannis Kotsiras and Dimitris Bassis, about Famagusta. He wished to see her free again as before. An elderly gentleman sitting next to me said to me: "No matter how many years this singer spends, he does not lose". The gentleman was right again!
This summer, however, we will not see Mitropanos. He did not manage to come to our island for one last concert. He did not have time to see his favorite team, Olympiakos, become European champions.
I do not want to write about his biography and his life. We read these on websites, newspapers, magazines and saw them in dozens of shows. I want to write about his songs. What we heard yesterday, we hear today and will continue to hear in the future. Because it is true after all, what they told us a month ago. Mitropanos died. But his torch will sound forever…
It will sound like "Rosa", the most beautiful zeibek, for many of us. This Zeybek embroidery by Alkis Alkaios and Thanos Mikroutsikos, which made even the great Mitropanos throw his turn on the track. "Sorry I do not understand what computers and numbers say"…
It will sound in "I am looking for you", in "Ladadika", in "A stop here", in "Zeibekiko of the Archangel", and in "Kif". All songs written by our own, Marios Tokas. In "Seas" the most beautiful ballad he had told us. "Learn in my eyes to read what I have not told you in words" he sang to us and we traveled.
It will sound in "Always smiling" Always smiling and laughing. A song sung for the dudes, like the undefeated Solomou. "Because those who became friends with Charo with a cigarette leave on their lips .."
In "Aloimono", the last song that Mitropanos usually sang to us before he left the stage. What makes everyone shudder. In "Mother I live" the anthem of foreign students. In "If you are by my side", in "Wandering Circus", in "Give me fire" for the suffering, in "I always celebrate when I am in pain", in "Tell me who sells hearts" for the heartless. In "Listen I have a voice". Yes, we heard you big. You have had and will always have a voice. THE VOICE!!
In these and so many of your favorite songs, you still exist. No matter how many months, years pass. You and your torch will be here forever…