By José Gandue @Gandour
Fifteen years ago I enjoyed one of the best concerts of my life. At least the best one I've attended in my entire history related to Rock al Parque, And I'm grateful to have had the privilege of seeing him sitting backstage, right on the stage of the Lago stage at the eleventh edition of the festival. A few months earlier, I had received in a package the entire collection of releases from a Chilean independent record label called AlgoRecords, belonging to the brothers Álvaro and Alejandro Gómez, which included compact discs and VHS cassettes of Ramírez, Pendex, Guiso And, of course, The Ganjas. I, who until then felt distant from any rock sound that lasted more than four minutes and who have smoked very little weed in my life, after going over and over the fun punk of Guiso and his album The sound, Having arrived in the same package, I began, not without some apprehension, to listen to the band then formed by Samuel Maquieira (guitars, vocals), Pape Astaburuaga (bass, voice), Luis Felipe Saavedra (keyboards, melodica) and Aldo Benincasa (drums). The very name, The Ganjas, made me think before putting the record in the stereo that I would listen to some reggae for a while, at best something similar to Todos tus muertos, or, at worst, to Cultura Profética. I was very wrong.
Let's return once more to the blender metaphor, to explain the vibrations emanating from the speakers when it started playing Laydown, the second album in this group's career: Take classic elements from Californian rock of the sixties, such as Jefferson Airplane, Buffalo Springfield o The Byrds. Then look in your cupboard for blues cubes from the old days. Muddy Waters y John Lee Hooker. Add to that more contemporary elements from bands like The Brian Jonestown Massacre o The Dandy Warhols, and cross the ocean to acquire a good dose of sharp feedback from groups like My Bloody Valentine y The Jesus and Mary Chain. That is, psychedelia in its most lysergic state, combined with a noisy, guitar-driven, intense soundtrack., an experience that forces the viewer to choose between the most intense sonic journey or despair and discomfort for those who are not used to this type of auditory experience. For me, listening to songs like Lark, the rain doesn't want to fall and, especially, Dancehall, It was crossing a necessary barrier to feed on other species, rto acknowledge that rock side that I so resisted because of the hippie cliché that I so despised, because of the tired old peace and love rhetoric that those terrible nostalgic devotees tried to sell me, those who were trapped in days of fictitious madness and speeches of false melancholy. Laydown It was an album that helped me build, as later happened with completely different productions, a varied and beautiful soundscape for the soundtrack of my life.
I wanted to see The Ganjas live and I wanted my friends from Bogotá to be part of that experience. Luckily Daniel Casas, The coordinator of Rock al Parque at the time accepted the proposal and put them in charge of closing the second stage of the festival., October 16, 2005. Ten thousand people witnessed his wonderful performance, especially that peak moment when he heard the more than eight minutes of the vibrant journey of Dancehall. As soon as that song ended, I felt as if someone were hesitantly, and then with breathtaking resolve, turning up the lever of ecstatic screams from the audience. When the concert finished, some of the festival staff members approached me with tears in their eyes. telling me it was the best thing he had seen at Simón Bolívar. That's when I realized that what I had experienced that night was not a product of my imagination.
A few days ago, the seal ByM Records, The current music manager for The Ganjas, posted a remastered version of the album's launch performance on YouTube, recorded live that year in the Master Room of Radio Universidad de Chile. Shot with a single camera by Andrés Padilla, Visually, it's not the most professional product, but, understanding the historical circumstances, the truth is that this is material worth enjoying repeatedly. Fifteen years later, Laydown It hasn't lost a single second of its value and power, and will surely continue to captivate new listeners in its outreach efforts. While we await the new material from The Ganjas, which they've been promising their fans for far too long, it's a good idea to revisit this band's discography., whose beauty remains in their spirit and in their waves, for the pleasure of the surrounding audience.
