TIMBIRICHE

Once upon a time a little 6-year old Mexican (that's me) had an ear ache. It was just terrible. He (ok, I) was in Acapulco, and the ache stemmed from too many dives into the waves of the great, warm Pacific Ocean. That night, as the pain persisted, it seemed like nothing could help.

Each and every one of my childhood Christmas holidays until I was 10 was spent where my mother was born, in the beautiful bay of Acapulco, with its warm waters and gorgeous beaches. Everything was there for me: family, friends, tortillas, pozole. I went to my first nightclub there (NEWS Discoteque) in 1992. But it was 10 years before that when I discovered a sound of music that would continue to chart my course through adolesence and into adulthood. It was a cool April evening, we were in Mexico with my family during the Spring Break holidays, 1982.

What premiered on the television, which my grandmother positioned in front of me for distraction purposes, was enough to change my world forever.

They were 6 kids, just a couple of years older than me, being introduced in a television special alongside the Spanish singer/songwriter Miguel Bosé, and they would rock my world.
TIMBIRICHE

Named after what we in the US call the game Dots and Boxes, Timbiriche would grow to alongside a generation of Mexicans. A year later, they would gain a 7th member and together change Mexican pop forever. They sang of life, the world around them, friendships, growing up, found (and lost) love, betrayal, reconciliation, and (above all) their love of music and Rock.

With every new year came a new album. Somehow, they brought me and my cousins closer. As I would return to little Acapulco for another of holidays, my cousins would be waiting for me with the latest album in hand and all the hits from the previous year already memorized. When we started to get old enough to go out, Timbiriche's songs had also begun to mature and were the anthems that meant more than words alone could express. Every year, I would miss my chance to see them live. In all that time, they never came to Chicago, where I grew up, and I never seemed to be in Mexico at the right time; we just grew up together in song. Those songs resonate so vividly. And I knew I wasn't alone. A whole generation was growing up with them. It was a world that I owned alone, far away from my daily life in the Windy City that, according to my friends, I had all to myself (in my mind, just part of being an only child). Timbiriche ceased to exist after 12 albums, the final record released in 1994, and it seemed they would just go down in my own history, something to remember in passing as a happy moment that was long gone.

In 1998, I was destroyed to learn that they had reunited for a show in Acapulco that no one warned me about. That show led to a successful reunion in Mexico City that sold out 20 shows at the 10,000-seat National Auditorium of Mexico. But I found out too late. It seemed never meant to be, and I had just moved on.

2006... a Wikipedia page appeared on the group, which I found astonishing. The golden anniversary was coming soon. Would there be a reunion? Could they do it again after so long? Indeed, they quickly announced plans to return, 6 of the original members. And so there it was. The reunion would include a new album, a tour throughout Mexico and the US, and a movie. On September 15, 2007 my time came, I finally met Timbiriche LIVE.

There was nothing on earth that could have prepared me for this one. It was more than spectacular, it was all-encompasing. I laughed, danced, cried, cheered, and - very loudly on command - sang the night away. They reached Chicago (to where I returned just for the show) on Mexico's Independance Day, which only meant more to us all. I'm 32 years old and after 25 of those years, I finally felt complete.