Concert

I realize I am long overdue for a new post. I sat down to write this one a few times this week, but each time it just sounded horrible, so I deleted it. If you are reading this then that means I have finally produced something that is half decent.

First off I want to say that the concert I went to on Saturday, the one I was talking about in earlier posts, was probably the best show I have ever been to. Now I guess I'll describe the whole night in detail, here goes.

I finished making my Che t-shirt the day before, I was really pleased with how it came out, I even added "Viva la Revolucion" on the back for good socialist measure. My friend and I took the trolley to the concert which was about an hour ride. It was being held in the car-park of a futball stadium in the south of Quito. The south of Quito is generally the poor part of the city, this means it is much more dangerous, and overall the atmosphere is pretty dismal. At almost every trolley stop more people got on who were obviously going to the concert as well, this meant that they were either wearing black or had dreadlocks, or both.

We all got off at the last stop, in the heart of south Quito and walked a few blocks in the rain to the futball stadium where there were hundreds of people queuing outside the gate. The line moved really slowly as they were letting people in literally 2 at a time so they could pat them down for knives and things. I can't say I minded waiting the extra time in line, it put my mind a little more at ease to know that no one was armed. The whole time while we waited vendors walked up and down the line selling everything from umbrellas to $1 bags of peach wine. Somehow, the concert which was "free" cost a dollar to get into, but whatever, this is Ecuador.

Inside the gate there was a sort of part grass, part mud, part asphalt field with a huge stage at one end and a crowd of thousands in the middle. The concert had been going on since about noon I think but the best two bands, the ones we came to see, were going to be playing last, so we had some time to wait. We watched a reggae band who were really good and then a crazy metal band who were, well, not so good. Their singer was dressed in indigenous Ecuadorian clothing, but not much of it, and played the guitar and a set of pipes at the same time which ultimately just resulted in an awful racket.

Finally the metal band ended and the final band was getting their stuff ready to come out. Either side of the stage were huge T.V. screens with various messages being displayed. These included information about anti-bullfighting activists, anti-neo nazi groups and anti-racism campaigns. I thought it was really cool how the people are so into eliminating neo nazis and racism. It seems to be much more of a problem here than in the States or the U.K. but there is a huge resistance. The anti-bullfighting stuff was pretty interesting too, although it was obviously really biased in the images and statistics it showed.

After not too long the final band came on and all anti-whatever campaigns were forgotten. The band was called Ska-P, and as the name implies, they are a ska band. They come from Spain and are 100% crazy. By this time the whole field was pretty much full, if I had to make a rough guess as to how many people were there I would say around 4000.

I would say that the energy level was through the roof but we were outdoors, so no roof, yeah you see what I am saying. It was truly crazy. Ska is really fast music and I think it can only be described as happy. 4000 people all jumping, pushing, dancing and shouting at once, in the rain is really a sight to see.

Ska-P obviously put alot of time and effort into their shows. They were constantly changing into costumes and putting on mini skits during the show. One song they played was very critical of the United States, calling them the "world police" and things like that, so while no one was looking the guitarist slipped off stage and into a huge Uncle Sam costume complete with stilts and top hat. Then the singer jumped off stage and reappeared in a bright orange prison outfit from Guantanamo Bay, Uncle Sam proceeded to point his long finger at the prisoner and then put him into a fake electric chair which had been placed on stage. The singer jumped all over the place shouting and shaking, pretending to get electrocuted while a roar of boos came from the crowd. Describing it now, the whole scene seems very dark and negative but in reality it was satirical and funny.

Later they played a song criticizing Catholics in which a figure on stilts came on stage wearing a long purple robe and carrying a big staff with a cross on the top. He had a long crooked nose and an evil grin, the whole costume was very well thought out. I didn't know what kind of reaction this would get from a crowd in a predominantly Catholic country, but for the most part everyone took it light heartedly and danced on.

At some point during the concert I was running around pushing, shouting and generally not caring when I bumped into Claudio. This came as a huge surprise for he hadn't said that he was coming. So there were some excited shouts of "What are you doing here!?" and the likes and then we went back to having a great time.

The show went on like this for about an hour and a half, much longer than any of the other bands played and ended at about 11. From here things kind of took a turn for the unexpected. After we left our plan was to catch the trolley back North where my friend's dad was going to pick us up from the station. We had asked previously if he would pick us up from the concert but he laughed and said to us, "I'm not going down there, they'll steal my car". However, upon arriving at the trolley, we were greeted by locked doors and extinguished lights. Now we were in trouble. We can't take our phones out to make a call otherwise we will get mugged for them, and we don't have away back north. The only option we had was to take a taxi. In the day this would be fine, taxi rides are about $1.50-3 depending on where you are going, but in the night things change. The drivers shut off the meters and jack up the prices, making them up in their heads for each ride. The only taxi we could find was trying to charge us $10 to get back, so we sort of guilt tripped him by saying that if he didn't take us for cheaper we would be left on the streets for the night. Eventualyl we got a cheaper fair and climbed in.

The whole concert experience was amazing, I didn't even have to tell anyone that I was a socialist.

On a different note, Las Fiestas de Quito started on Saturday. Translated as "the parties/celebrations of Quito", this week celebrates the founding of Quito. There are parties every day of the week and tons of things going on in the city most notably are the bullfights. I think I am going on Monday which will be quite an experience.

Tomorrow we have the Ecuadorian futball championships and the team from Quito, Liga de Quito, are playing. So I am going to that.I will probably have another post mid-week about the game and the bullfight.