hysteria, hip hop and hair at personal fest- oh my!
Friday night cam went with preston, zach, and their friend eve to personal fest, a two-day outdoor concert at club de amigos in Buenos Aires (we only went for one day). After arriving late (club de amigos is a bit farther than we had planned for), we were only able to see 3 acts- Gotan Project, B Real of Cypress Hill, and Snoop Dogg (and the end of Tego Calderon).
Gotan Project was amazing– and it was quite the experience to be able to see them in Buenos Aires (they are a tango electronica group, which I highly recommend. Here is their website if you want a taste of their music).
We then saw B Real. He was the frontman of the 90s hiphop group Cypress Hill, however, he played about two Cypress songs (neither one of which was “Tequila Sunrise” or “Latin Thugs”) and stuck to his own music– not recommended.
At this point, cam noticed that, going along with the publicity theme for the festival, about 30% of the festival goers were wearing bright-colored wigs. She decided that she had to have one, and raced to the other end of the park in a quest to get one. Unfortunately they had all been given away, but she was able to convince a group of people with an extra wig that, since they had never met anyone from Oregon, that they should give her the wig. I’d like to say it made more sense in spanish, or at the time, but I don’t think it did. Anyway, I now own a bright red afro, and I’ll post photos when I upload them.
We then pushed our way forward to see the headlining act, Snoop Dogg. Even advancing as close to stage as we did was quite a feat- there were thousands of people at the concert (there were 5 different stages and 30,000 people came— but remember, Snoop was the main attraction). Obviously it was standing room only and we were wedged up against all of our neighbors. After waiting for Snoop to come on for over an hour, standing room only, our feet began to hurt. we decided that we really needed to move when two 15-year-old boys squeezed up who smelled like they hadn’t showered in months. So we decided to move to the back and wait for the show to start.
And luckily we did. We had not been sitting more than 15 minutes when we looked up and saw those thousands of people– the same ones that we had been standing with before- running towards us. I can only compare it with a stampede of horses, and we only had enough time to stand up and grab our things before we were part of it and running towards the back. People were climbing over fences and cowering in corners, and, at the time, the best we could gather was “nada paso” (nothing happened). However, the stampede occurred two other times. Luckily Snoop then came on and the show resumed, but we were left wondering what happened.
What appears to have passed was that people were angry at the delay and throwing bottles, one of which stabbed a concert-goer. Out of that, the crowd, angry and frustrated at the delay, overreacted, and total chaos ensued. People literally fell down and were trampled on. It is so so lucky that we moved to the back, because we would have been in the middle of it all, and believe me, we were scared enough. what is interesting is that none of the major news organizations covered the debacle. One site claims this was because journalists covering the event were threatened by personal (the cell phone company that sponsored the show) that their VIP rights would be revoked for the next day. Some bloggers have extended the blame up to Kirchner (and his failure to require more security at big shows- even though no liquor was served at the event and a 15 block “liquor-free zone’ was erected around the show so no one could buy alcohol) but I think that what took place was frustration at the delay, and a spontaneous reaction by a crowd.
