And the concert season opened. Those 3 or 4 months at the end of the year, when a lot of good bands are performing in Argentina.

A lot of people would like to go to all of those concerts.
Probably, most of us are fans of some of these bands.
Or maybe, we just like the dynamics of recitals.

And the truth is that the gig of a given band is the chance we have to be “face to face” with our music idols, in communion with the rest of the worshippers.
It is the closest we will ever be to a campfire, on the beach, singing all together with the musicians.

 

Right now, I am listening to the last album of Noel Gallagher. Definitely, he is a great player.
I used to be a fan of his former band, Oasis. I considered them the best band of the history.

I was a genuine fan.
I remember the pleasure that used to be going to the records stores to explore the shelves for hours, looking for the newest releases. Or, even better, the rarest ones. Like a concert in Japan, a B-Sides album and stuff like those.
There was an Oasis gig in 2006, in the Campo Argentino de Polo properties.
I had a ticket. I also had family issues that kept me home that night. And, of course, I had a huge sense of frustration.

Fortunately, there was a rematch for me in 2009. At the Monumental Stadium. And I finally made it. I was there.
 

For some reason, when the lights went off and the stadium was empty, I considered that the band owed me some classic songs like "Stand by Me" and "Don´t Go Away".
But bands always stay in debt with their followers, because every single fan has a very curated playlist in mind when attending to a concert.
Anyway, those are the same fans that find the way out to reward themselves, probably on another gig, listening to rock groups playing anthems. And I had my rematch, years later. A soloist Noel Gallagher paid the debt with me, performing “Don´t Look Back In Anger”.

 

He wasn´t Oasis, anyway. But I wasn´t the same guy I had been in 2009 either.
People say that there is a trend to go back to the 90’s.

But the 90’s have gone.

Noel Gallagher, nowadays, is a soloist. A very talented one.
And I am a different guy.
And the way we interact with music is different too.
There is no “listening to the song in the radio-liking it-get the CD-liking it more-get the rest of the CDs-still liking it” dynamics anymore.

All we have, as fans, are the gigs.
And that is the moment when we touch the sky.

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Because, to me, that is the journey that fans do.

The Oasis fan in me stayed in the Monumental Stadium, that Sunday night in May.

I left the recital when it finished, but I think I forgot the fan there.
Maybe he lost himself with the band, joining them on the tour.

Or perhaps he has never come back from the sky, after touching it.

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Because when there is a chance, all the fans go to heaven.

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