el rock nacional

oh my goodness, had quite a time trying to see a rock en español concert in argentina! first, divididos. the singer called in sick, show was postponed. then ska-p. after all these days of south american summertime heat, out of nowhere came all this rain, an electrical storm complete with flooding on that exact night. umm, no concerts in outdoor ampitheaters :(

so our last chance was to see attaque 77 in temperley, about 45 minutes outside buenos aires. we had to go to three different roquero ticket outlets before we found one with tickets for that show. on the day of the concert we were convinced that the forces of the universe really were conspiring against us because, while the singer was in good health and the skies were clear, there was a nationwide one-day paro of gas station workers (¡adelante, compañeros!), resulting in almost no available fuel for 24 hours. the car we were planning to take, of course, had an almost empty tank. mariana's tío negro to the rescue! he's very sweet, resourceful, and a mechanic. luckily, he was working on a friend's car with a full tank of gas. off we went!

so the show... was great!! the audience was filled with super-fanáticos de attaque. i think probably 75% of people who attended were wearing attaque t-shirts or had attaque tattoos. it was one of those very affectionate latin american audiences that sings along with every song. my favorite was this little boy who spent most of the evening perched on his parents' shoulders, arms outstretched, singing at the top of his lungs. something particularly delightful about a tiny roquero reciting...

¿ellos o nosotros?
¿quién es más criminal?
¡policía federal... la vergüenza nacional!

;) have to teach them young! in between songs, the audience would start up these futból-style chants to the band:

¡soy de attaque!
olé olé olé. olé olé olé alá,
olé olé olé cada día te quiero más
yooo soy de attaque,
es un sentimiento...¡no puedo parar!

jaja, sweet. and so much better than the tendency around here to fill up any silences with calls of "culero". for their part attaque 77 responded to all that love with lots of noisy affection of their own. i believe this is their que 21 años no es nada tour. but 21 years is actually quite something! musically they're maybe a little less punk, but they still play hard and their lyrics are politically relevant as ever. throw in some of those rock en español tormented love songs which i so adore, plus an encore with the guy from ska-p joining them on stage to sing a cover of i fought the law / yo combatí la ley and really what more could you ask for? thanks to attaque for an excellent recital! and victory to the gas station workers!

here's a video from that night that someone posted on youtube:



on a side note: one thing i noticed about the rock en español situation in argentina was it's availability via tv. similar to mexico (or lots of other places i imagine) there is actually still music on their music-television channels. here's a good one we came across while watching videos with the abuelitas... hurray for rock + cumbia villera!

fabulosos cadillacs : padre nuestro