London, January 1981. Buenos Aires, March 2022.
In the frigid winter that still caught him by surprise, a boy walked near a certain club called The Marquee, trying to absorb everything he saw in the post-punk London capital, the faces, the clothes, the hair. Eventually the songs.
One late summer, another boy was walking through Palermo Soho, on a Friday night that was starting to get excited, around a club called La Tangente. Tired of a bad night’s sleep, excitement was his fuel.
What that boy wanted in London was to receive some of the energy he only dreamed of existing with every vinyl record he listened to, rarities he could get from skinny importers in downtown São Paulo. The world, at least what mattered to him, was New Wave.
Walking around Palermo, for that boy, was repeating familiar itineraries. Years ago, in a record store that no longer exists, Miles, he discovered new bands from Buenos Aires. And now, after hearing so much about his life, he was going to check out one of these discoveries up close.
Hunger was a minor annoyance on his wanderings through London’s Soho. Even so, the boy decided to buy a slice of pizza, a luxury given the budget he had on the trip. With the cheese getting cold with every step, he just wanted it to be time for him to enter the Marquee.
Crossing Thames Street, the other boy remembered that he had only eaten early, on the plane that had taken him to Buenos Aires. He saw a place he already knew, Chori, at number 1653. He immediately ordered two “choripans” and went out devouring them through the streets, smearing his face with mayonnaise while the Tangente didn’t open.
The band that played at the Marquee, Thompson Twins. “Lies, Lies, Lies” played all day on the radios the boy could hear over there. Few would remember them 40 years later. But it was an unmissable show in January 1981. And it was at the Marquee.
Tangent attraction, El Robot Bajo el Agua. Unmissable in the middle of 2022. The boy knew the songs by heart, from “Ver-tiente”, which made him cry, to “Ich Liebe Dich”, his mantra. “Inside your eyes of almonds bloom, stars that tingle with joy in my pupils”…
Inside the Marquee, the show was a detail. The boy was there, in the legendary club. And that was what mattered. When the Thompson Twins came in, it was kind of fun. But the important thing is that he was there, where he always dreamed of being.
It took El Robot less than half an hour to take the Tangente stage. That’s what mattered. Listening to the band he fell in love with over ten years ago. See your idol Nicolás Kramer up close. Where he always dreamed of being.
Everything was new, the place, the people, the music. Being at the Marquee was what most validated that trip to London, which wasn’t exactly lacking in other incredible experiences. Something to tell years later.
There was the comfort of familiar tunes at the Tangente show. The boy had planned the trip for this. And now he knew he would never forget that night. The promise to see El Robot, he’d made himself years ago.
Full of beer, the boy in London barely made it to the hostel where he was. But when he lay down on the simple bed, he closed his eyes, happy.
The boy from Buenos Aires walked unhurriedly to his hotel, sober but barely touching the ground. He lay down, but the excitement was great.
He went to wash his face and barely disguised his surprise to see the face of the London boy in the bathroom mirror. And almost at the same time, one said to the other, “I’m glad you’ve changed so little all this time.”
Music is everything in our world.
