Itwas a quiet, humid evening at Vasantha’s house, the kind we’d grown used to in Colombo’s northern suburbs. A group of us were sitting cross-legged on the floor, passing around glasses of Portello and an occasional smoke talking about parties and cassette decks, when Mahinda walked in, arms outstretched like a magician, holding a glossy poster of a band none of us had seen before.
Santana.
The name sounded foreign and mystical. The men in the poster looked nothing like the showbands we knew. They had long hair, wild clothes, a kind of confident disarray. There was something in their eyes — something rebellious and free. We stared, a little awestruck in this black and white poster.
That poster went up on the wall immediately. Mahinda said his uncle had brought it from overseas, along with a few tapes. That evening, he playedSoul SacrificeandBlack Magic Womanon a battered Phillips cassette deck. It crackled and hissed, but underneath the static, there was a guitar that sang with sorrow and seduction.
The two songs settled into me like the scent of frangipani after a thunderstorm.
Soon after, we began hearing it everywhere — at school socials, in borrowed cassette decks, at impromptu jam sessions in verandas. The city’s showbands caught on. Gabo and the Breakaways were the first to give it a go. That’s when I started going to their concerts — not so much for Gabo himself, but to feelBlack Magic WomanandSoul Sacrificeripple through the air.
I still remember the first time I heard it live, under a canopy of stars at the Bishops College Auditorium. The drummer was something else — completely lost to the beat, eyes closed, head thrown back, as though the rhythm had taken hold of his soul. Gabo, seated at the congas, worked his hands with such skill and devotion it felt like prayer. It was no longer a song. It was a spell.
For those few minutes, as the music poured over us, we weren’t in Colombo anymore. We were somewhere else. Somewhere far away — California, maybe, or some smoky club in San Francisco.
I bought my own Santana poster soon after, with money saved from helping in the record bar at the church carnival. I pinned it up in my bedroom above my desk and secondhand comics. Not to impress anyone. Just to keep that feeling close.
A friend had the original LP, and another had a tape copied from the SLBC English Service. Between us, we kept the songs alive. We played it on beach trips, during evening sojourns with friends, and in borrowed cars with rattling speakers. It became the background score to my teenage years — when I was in love, and more often, when I wasn’t.
These days, I find them on YouTube and watch Santana play them at Woodstock. I wasn’t old enough to understand Woodstock then — none of us was — but my friend’s older brother spoke of it as he’d stood ankle-deep in the mud, waving a peace sign at the stage. Now I listen to Santana on my Sonos system at home, or with my AirPods as I walk the Australian streets, older and heavier, but still chasing that sound.
Funny how a band can grow with you. It shifts shape, but never really leaves. And if you’re lucky, it keeps playing — quietly, faithfully — long after the music has stopped.
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