Colombian Fest was here

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I had my ticket for ‘preferencial’ (the opposite of VIP), I was so happy because it was moved for Coliseo el Campín, a much better venue than Simón Bolívar Park. Three great bands on a weekday, perfect.

At noon I learn the concert starts early, at 6:00 pm the Colombian band The Mills would be on stage, so this would guarantee we would have a lot of more time to enjoy the concert, because as they usually do they would turn everything off by 10:00 pm (error 1).

Putting a good dog’s face, I go to see my boss and I tell about the situation, the idea was to leave office early so I could get in line and go inside to see the WHOLE festival. She, because of his good musical taste, covers me allowing to get out early (point in favour, I insist all my female bosses have always been such nice persons to me).

So I arrive to the Coliseo around 4:20 pm, ‘preferencial’ line being shorter than ‘Platino’ (VIP), I rush to get in the line and I get before three social groups: closer to the gate, a group remembering big, old concerts in Colombia; behind, a group of young fellows talking about 90s music with an older man (apparently the father of one of them), and at one side, a couple gossiping about what it would be the private party tonight with R.E.M.

At 5:45 pm people starts to get in, at 6:00 pm The Mills started to play, so I missed it. People was outside quite angry, asking for explanations because if they do the line and arrive early, why the heck they can’t get in the venue early or at least fast. Just as an angry girl said: “I paid to see three bands! They should respect us!” For worse, when I was about to get in the Coliseo, a fight started between two ticket touts, a young woman and his partner, possibly an American, negotiating the tickets in the line (…)

Okay, now inside, they were in change, preparing for The Mars Volta appearance. Went to W. C., came back, did some ‘recognizing,’ found no acquaintances. Oh, surprise! Official T-shirts of R. E. M. tour, I saw them, I passed 2, 3 times, okay, I ended buying one. Kudos for the organizers, they finally realized where’s the good business, and I must say the quality of these T-shirts, compared with the ones they sold at Soda Stereo concert, is quite superior.

The Mars Volta comes out, such a great band, six musicians on stage, percussion, a really hard guitar, and the voice and the show of the vocalist were awesome; they played one hour, non-stop, they broke a fan, some glasses, and one of the drums. Cedric enjoyed the audience with his cool dance. I don’t know a lot about this band, I learnt about it because of DaroRojasP (his blog is here) some years before, later I started to listen more to them in state-run radio station Radiónica, and I liked it, it’s something hard to swallow but incredible.

Let’s pass to the main course, what an awesome show, the play with the screens was cool, they played videos combined with live footage from the group and the audience. I don’t have the full setlist, but they played all the good hits, such as Losing My Religion, It’s The End Of The World As We Know It, Imitation Of Life (one of my favourite songs); they end short after 10:00 pm, people applaud them, call them, but obviously everyone knew about that law… when a white paper appears in a screen and a hand writes:

Do you want more?

REM wants more from Colombia!

We can’t hear you!

People shouts, the band comes in again and plays with another three songs, including Everybody Hurts, and closing with Man On The Moon, my favourite song of this band! GOAL! They hit it out from the stadium! Thank you!

Some author notes: REM invites to vote for Obama, they look really happy with the reaction of the people, at the end the Coliseo was full, except with some holes in ‘Platino’, which if it wasn’t so ‘Platino’ maybe it could do more stuff. I saw a lot of teens with the TMV look, saw a lot of ties too, people with the franga painted on their faces, a lot of older fellows shouting REM, a lot of cool people, Michael Stipe steps down to the audience twice, for shaking hands and singing with them, dancing as he always does, it ended around 10:45 pm (they left me with my mouth shut). Just like other times, it was such a memorable concert.

Bad stuff: They didn’t pass them a Colombian flag as they always do; the schedule was too much for them, people arrived early, they opened the gates really late, with just two cops in the line, it didn’t moved with the search stuff, sound wasn’t good, Cedric’s voice could have sound much better, when REM was on stage it got better a little bit.

Material here: The official one, thanks to jpruizs, Last.Fm, Facebook and now Twitter! (or with the #remcolombia tag).

UPDATE: the complete setlist!!! And updated, sorry, I wrote this on the early morning.

UPDATE 2: Chatting with friends, some of them going to the concert, there were three faults: 1. Festival: it was a lot for them to talk about "festival" in the middle of the week and with changes in the schedules. 2. Price: it was really expensive. 3. The venue: yes, sound sucks, but it’s quite more comfortable to SEE a concert.

UPDATE 3: I recommend a good review by a fan: R.E.M tonight!!! | R.E.M. Bogota | R.E.M. Bogota II | R.E.M. Bogota III

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This article, about the Colombian Fest held on 29 October 2008 in Bogotá, was originally published 30 October 2008 at Yassef.info. Translated from Spanish by Julián Ortega Martínez

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