The fan phenomenon does not expire with Pecos: 'revival' night at Marenostrum Fuengirola

It's curious, but what will be one of the tours of 2025 could have happened (almost) the same 30 years ago. Same songs, same artists, and... the same chorus of hundreds of voices accompanying each song. It's true that today there are fewer screams and we are all older; but the rest hasn't changed that much either. The fan phenomenon does not expire with Pecos. Nearly 5,000 people joined this Wednesday in the Herrero brothers' 'revival', the blond and the brunette, at Marenostrum Fuengirola, a night to remember that girl who used to cover her folder with photos from 'Súper Pop', another who wallpapered her room with duo posters, and the one who dreamed of her first teenage love to the rhythm of 'Acordes'. "I hope all these songs remind you of beautiful and good moments in your life," Pedro wished at the beginning of this celebration of their 45 years in music, after two decades without performing together on stage.

"I'm super nervous, like a teenager, it's like going back to the past," admitted Lola Padilla wearing a T-shirt designed by her daughter with a photo of Pecos today alongside another from their beginnings, from when she saw them at Tívoli. For Ana and Loli Cabrillana, aged 58 and 61, this was their first time. "It's never too late!" they exclaimed, while at another corner of the venue brothers Antonio and Justo Delgado put on a blond and a brunette wig respectively, laughing and taking pictures with friends just before the time travel began.

Among the audience, predominantly female, there were custom T-shirts "for mature ladies" and teenage "nerves"

We start in 1980: 'Déjala' plays. "Let her dress as she wants, let her. Let her be free in her own way, let her," Javier and Pedro sing. A hymn to women's independence that explains much of what Pecos were, the idols of a generation of girls liberated from censorship and more uninhibited than ever. They, mere kids of 17 and 15 when they started, drove the late 70s and early 80s teenagers crazy with their good-boy faces and those love songs sung in two voices. A right mix of innocence and sensuality that broke all the charts. And now, when they and their fans are over 60, the frenzy repeats itself.

They were devoted from the beginning ("Don't get tired, there's still a lot of night left," Pedro warned when half of the audience stood up shouting "Pecos!" and "oé, oé, oé!" by the fourth song) but with 'Háblame de ti' came the ecstasy. That song in which Pecos directly address the fans, pointing at them as they did four decades ago, was sung last night by 5,000 voices—overwhelmingly female—with hands on hearts, heads swaying side to side, mobiles held high, and spontaneous hugs. Many would not sit down for the rest of the night.

Repertoire

But there was more. From their last albums, already in the 90s and early 2000s, they revived 'De espuma, de arena y sal' and 'Un manantial de ternura'; but these were one of the few nods to those decades. The 70s and 80s dominated the setlist, because as Pedro acknowledged, none had "the magic" of the first ones. At Marenostrum they performed 'Canción para Pilar' that Víctor Manuel dedicated to Ana Belén; the emotional 'Madre' dedicated to their mother (widowed at 28 with three children), a 'medley' of 'Juany' and 'Y te vas' in acoustic five voices and, of course, the song that started it all: 'Esperanzas', from their debut album 'Concierto para adolescentes'. The target audience was clear then, but last night the Núñez sisters tweaked the title on some fun T-shirts to make it more true to reality: "Concert for (teenage) mature ladies," it read.

Since February, tickets for this concert had been sold out. The initial location was Castillo Sohail, but the pace of sales encouraged a move to the larger stage. And it's not that it was especially cheap (from 55 euros), it's that there was a great desire to hear those songs that marked an adolescence, a first love, a breakup, or simply a youth friendship once more live.

Nostalgia is a vein that works. This has not been an easy summer for live music, with cancellations and last-minute changes, but Pecos have swept through the country. Already in March, they announced they had sold 180,000 tickets, a figure that places them directly in the top ten of national tours, and there were still dates to be confirmed. 'Two voices and one story' is what they've named this tour. And it turns out that this story is still that of many. But do not panic: Pecos returns to Malaga. Anyone who's left wanting more has a new opportunity on November 8 at the Palacio de los Deportes Martín Carpena.