Revolución to Roxy by Phil Manzanera

Author:Phil Manzanera [Manzanera, Phil]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781783242801
Publisher: Wordzworth Publishing Limited
Published: 2024-03-22T04:00:00+00:00

TEN

The Things You Do

We’ve probably all had moments in our lives that we look back on and think, what the hell was I thinking? That’s precisely how I reflect on the moment when the brilliant Colombian bass guitarist Chucho Merchan asked me if I would be willing to play a charity concert in Cali, Colombia and I said yes. He also mentioned that he’d also invited David Gilmour and Roger Daltrey, but not for a moment did I think that either would agree.

Six years earlier the Nevado del Ruíz volcano in Colombia had erupted suddenly, destroying the town of Armero and killing an estimated 23,000 people. Many more had been left injured or homeless and the need was real. Now the Eco Mundo conservation group was organising a conference in Cali, and the concert would draw attention to their aims and raise funds for local causes. None of the performers would be paid, but all our travel and hotel expenses would be covered.

At this point my mum’s cautionary voice should have popped into my head, repeating the warning I’d frequently heard from her; “don’t go back to Colombia, it’s too dangerous!” She said it so often in normal times, but this was the absolute height of the blood-soaked rivalries between the Medellín and Cali drug cartels, in which murder and kidnapping were daily occurrences. The notorious Cali leader Pablo Escobar was on the run and something close to all-out war was raging. Some crazy naïve English/ Colombian bloke, who would no doubt be perceived as a rich rock star well able to come up with a generous ransom payment, was an easy and obvious target for the professional kidnappers whose activities had been all too vividly reported. It was by no means unusual for hesitant families to be encouraged to pay when various bits of their loved-one’s anatomies were received through the mail.

There were many reasons why a sensible person would politely but firmly decline the kind invitation. On the other hand, it had been nearly twenty-five years since I’d been back to my mother’s home country – last visited shortly after my father died – and I had some sixty cousins in Colombia, many of whom would no doubt welcome me back and look out for my wellbeing. I was amazed to discover that David Gilmour and Roger Daltrey had both said yes and since neither of them had played in South America before, we were clearly in for an adventure. David’s partner Polly Samson and his manager Steve O’Rourke would come along for the ride, and everyone would add on a few days of holiday after the gig. What could possibly go wrong?

Poster for Cali concert, 1992

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