Now or Never

Oasis — River Plate Stadium — 3rd of May of 2009

Oasis is the band that introduced me to the whole “Madchester” scene and the one that also taught me that family dynamics are never, but never smooth, and have little to do with blood ties. They also taught me that it is ok if your family ties are shit and messy. As in, actually ok and an universal truth. No matter how much money, how much success, how much anything, all families are messed up.

At age 9, I found out that I had a half-sister on my father’s side. My mother told me after my father discreetly threatened to tell me the truth during a fight with her. It wasn’t even a matter of me knowing the truth of him. During the argument, heated as all the arguments my parents had, my mother angrily said that she never lies, that she is honest. I can’t remember why she stated that, but my dad answered back “Are you sure you are honest about everything? Even to India?”. Mind you, my father loved to make me witness of all their fights, transporting them to whatever room I was in, so this exchange happened in front of me. I thought it was off, but so many things are off when two adults fight. Even now as an adult myself I feel that way. There are only so many ways to hurt and be mean without even insulting.

I paid no attention, but as soon as my father left, my mother decided to explain to me why he said that. She explained to me that I had a half-sister, twenty years older than me. My half-sister met me when I was a baby. During my first months of life, my mother was pretty much on her own when it came to taking care of me. On top of everything, she had to figure out how she would incorporate this figure into my life. She decided it would be better to wait or leave it to fate. Until that day, when she decided it was better for me to find through her. She had no clue how else to handle this whole situation of an “assembled” family. She married her first and only boyfriend, most assembled families she knew were chaotic. How you put limits to a young woman who isn’t even your own daughter? Mind you, my father is a person who will go over the distance to avoid conflict with a third, external person.

My father never cared about keeping this secret from me. From the moment I knew about her up to age 12, he barely talked to me about her. He would sometimes see her and I would never find out about it, he would never talk to me about those times. All I knew about my half-sister was through my mother and grandparents. They never spoke ill of her to me or tried to create a rivalry, quite the contrary. They did everything to make me feel that she meant no harm and that she wasn’t a menacing figure. However, god knows what went through my father’s head that, as usual, he decided to talk to me about her and insist on me meeting her in one of my worst moments until then. The pressure from him was constant. It would make me enraged and also guilty. She was my blood, but I didn’t want to meet her, not in that moment. He would often say “Oh, but what if you and I are on the street and we happen to encounter her”. This would give me a major vibe of him trying to force her on me. It was angering. And menacing. For a bit more than a decade, he barely cared, and suddenly he was mentioning that a casual encounter was possible. There was a major age difference between me and her, and my father has always been awful to handle family dynamics with some balance or grace, and my relationship with him has always been rocky at least. I was heavily depressed, having issues with both of my parents and also at school academically and with my peers, I really didn’t want to add another relationship that could go wrong or add stress. Like most of my crises, I was going through my teenage crisis before time.

Around that time, Oasis that was getting quite a bit of hype and radios would play them all the time. Not just their classics, but also their more recent songs. I fell in love with both of them, and whenever there was an article about Oasis in magazines or newspaper I would instantly read it. One of these articles was one an interview to Noel Gallagher. The topic of his just discovered half-sister popped and he said he wasn’t interested in meeting her. This made me come to terms with the fact that I had a half-sister that I didn’t feel ready to meet and that it was something that had to be respected. Obviously, in his typical Gallagher fashion, his statements were much harsher than anything I could ever feel. The Gallaghers will never cease to amaze me, “Sibling Rivalry” still entertains me to no end, but I am glad that I am soft enough to never say or do the stuff they do. Hate the sin, but not the sinner I guess.

For the next years of my life I dreamt of eventually seeing Oasis live. Oasis was one of my favourite bands in my early teens. I even got to have one of those super frail backpacks with the union jack guitar and Oasis logo in its front. I went fucking insane when I found out on 2008 they would come to the country. The joy was followed by frustration. The tickets were insanely expensive. The only chance I had was if my dad went to cover the gig in his photojournalist duties. And because if everything can go wrong it will, I had a biology exam the next day. So I was on the verge of missing one of my favourite bands and with no doubt have an exam the next day.

When May 3rd arrived, I didn’t have a ticket so everything depended on if my dad could ask to cover the concert or not. At almost 19 I had given up every chance. I was totally destroyed. No news from my dad or anything, trying to studying for an exam I knew I was going to fail anyway because my biology exams were hard, a few times even 2/3 of my class would fail them). I remember writing in my leg “Don’t look back in anger” to try to not feel sad. As a reminder that things could be worse, far worse. I remember very vividly being in the bathroom, just breathing in and out, when my mom opened the door and said: “Your father called and said you have to dress up as fast as possible, you are going to see Oasis”. My parents, both very anti-school as an institution and awful in science subjects, already knew I would fail the exam and that one way or another I would sort that out.

My father got me in on the excuse I was helping him to carry this MASSIVE telephoto lens. It was massive. I have seen stuff like that before in the photography section of the newspaper, but never carried one. I respected my dad a bit more after carrying that. We got in, and I could have gone to the photo pit with my dad but my dad refused and security wasn’t sure about letting me in. Photo pits, when they still existed and were photo pits for actual photographers with actual cameras and not phones, at River Plate during rock concerts were basically a war trench where photographers try to work while dehydrated and fainted bodies dive above them before being grabbed by security and taken to the First Aid Tent. I stayed in the field nearby by space that took you to the press sector being chaperoned by a journalist my dad knew until he came back from the photo pit. After that, he came and we went to the press sector where he did the photo transmission.

If you are a photojournalist or close to one, the moment of transmitting the pictures has always been nerve-wracking. No matter how better the technology gets, sd cards disappear, the press wifi gets slow even if you are the only one transmitting. So many things can go wrong, internet was the usual one though. And we are talking about massive sized pictures if they are using DSLR cameras. It is limbo. The moment that defines if your work ends there or if you have to get crafty and carry kilograms of equipment together with an open laptop to another part of the venue and pray your connection doesn’t fail again. When helping my father or uncle, this was the most boring moment because I couldn’t go too far from them and this wasn’t a good moment to even make a peep. Offer help at max. Either way, I was happy to be there because I was listening to the music live. The crowd that day was insane and as much as I would have loved to be in the crowd all the time, I feel I wouldn’t have enjoyed it a lot, especially because my father was extra careful when going to concerts with me. “Don’t jump so much”. “Put your coat on”. As much as I crash with him, I know his main fear has always been something happening to me.

My dad finished transmitting the pictures, called a cab from the newspaper to pick up the lens and the computer, and we went back to the field. If my memory doesn’t fail me, we went back for the last 3 or 4 songs and the encore. For some reason, I remember listening to “I’m Outta Time” and thinking that even though the moment was far from perfect (I spent a good bunch of the concert in the press room and I couldn’t get too close to stage), I knew someday I would remember that moment and wish I was there again. I got the setlist and a sticker from the press section. I obviously miserably failed the exam the next day. But without even knowing, I saw Oasis’ last concert in Argentina on their last tour ever.

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