Books guaranteed in Portugal for the last 60 years DNOTICIAS
The recently edited “I was always!”, full of important memories of concerts that took place in Portugal in the last 60 years and guards, by whom the book reads.
Keeping the tickets for the concerts he attends is a habit that broadcaster Henrique Amaro has “since he was a kid”. One day he would revisit his collection, he remembered making a book.
“I researched and saw that there was nothing in Portugal or abroad. He soon realized that it was not funny to anyone, so ask friends if they had saved and saved and another volume”, recalled Henrique Amaro, in statements to Lusa.
“The friend calls a friend the internet friend calls”: “The friend calls a friend the internet friend, and suddenly I’m contacting people I still don’t know, who I met in the attention of another who also has this habit”.
The “construction” of the book ended up being done over the last four years and the result was recently edited by Tinta da China.
The “main point” was “to go in search of something that is irretrievably lost, which is the graphic value”. Therefore, the “Roses National” are reserved, which are not “Henrique Amaro” (they are called today) and have no connection between memory, the AC/DC Gun, the “Ac/DC Guns, the tickets are the same”.
After that, the broadcaster selected it taking into account its “graphic value” and “some aesthetic plurality”.
“Only when I have in front of me a universe of 700 notes, which were the ones they managed to get, do I start to conceptualize”, he recalled.
In terms of spaces where concerts take place, from the stadiums to Castelo do Sabá or Ritz Clube, in Lisbon, the Infante Rock Rens Pavilion, in Porto.
In musical terms, the tickets are from “various universes, from punk to jazz”. “And Friar Hermano da Câmara is also there, with the presentation of the album ‘O Nazareno’ at Coliseu dos Recreios [em 1986]which was a very remarkable record, and Pavarotti”, in 1991 also at Coliseu dos Recreios, in Lisbon.
Regarding international bands and artists, Henrique Amaro tried to “always have the first performance in Portugal in his own name”. That’s why the ticket for the Sonic Youth concert in Campo Pequeno, in 1993, “which is not aesthetically beautiful” is there and not for other shows that the band gave later in Portugal.
“There are several names that have arrived several times and I went in search of the first”, he underlined.
The same did not happen with national artists. In the book there are several concert tickets by Xutos & Pontapés, Mão Morta or Pop Dell’Arte, and there is also the ticket for the first concert at Coliseu dos Recreios by a Portuguese rock band, Tantra, which sold out in 1978.
“In the 1980s and 90s, there was an achievement for national artists, namely the Coliseu, but above the Coliseu there was the Cascais Dramatic. Rui Veloso did this in a space of six months. Having both tickets, both”, description.
Henrique Amaro admits there are notes “Edition races left to find”, such as the one from Sun Arkestra’s concert at Gulkian, in Lisbon, in 1985, or from the 1st edition of Cascais Jazz, in 1971, “where Miles Davis was” , and some António Variações, or others decided not to put it, like Laurie Anderson’s concerto, “which was a generic”.
In the book are some tickets for shows that also didn’t happen, like Joe Cocker’s in Lisbon, in 1980, or Lou Reed’s in Porto, or the Artlantico festival, “the first one designed for the Lisbon area”, in September from 1987.
In addition to individual concerts, “I’ve Been There!” also has participation in festivals, such as Vilar de Mouros, Sudoeste or SBSR.
The book is mainly composed of images of which he notes, to which Henrique Amaro tried to “escape from attaching”, because “the very fragile thing and the evaluation that a person of a concert is a very individual, very personal, very personal thing”.
“I wanted the book to be in search of memories, not to be a book where someone writes the memories of others. What I like about the book is that people look at the note and reconstruct their relationship with it. This individual relationship, of each search,” he said.
Divided into four chapters, 1960/70, 1980, 1990 and 2000/2020, “I Was There!” contains five texts, an initial, by Henrique Amaro, and one for each chapter, by “eyewitnesses of shows from those decades”: Luís Pinheiro de Almeida, Ana Cristina Ferrão, Pedro Fradique and Isilda Sanches, respectively.
The oldest ticket is for a concert by The Searchers at Teatro Monumental, in Lisbon, on November 2, 1965, which cost 50 escudos. The most recent, from the Have Fun with God initiative, with Ricardo Jacinto, Ry Vuh, and HHY & The Macumbas, which took place on April 1 of this year at the Círculo Católico de Operários do Porto (CCOP) and costs seven euros in advance and ten euros on the same day.