Quilmes Rock 2008

South America » Argentina » Buenos Aires » Buenos Aires
April 8th 2008

Published: April 8th 2008

I didn’t sleep much this weekend…and early 7:45 classes on Monday and Tuesday didn’t help. So, I spent 6 hours after my first two classes today sleeping in a park. I meant to go to my last class, but it just didn’t happen. Even with that long nap, I don’t think I’ll have trouble getting to sleep tonight. Tomorrow is a more relaxed day and by then I should be back on schedule. Last night I was doing an assignment for my creativity class until about 3 and then had to get up at 6:30 to make it on time to my 7:45 class at UCA. The assignment was to copy by hand a short story. I did Goldilocks and the three bears, or Ricitos de Oro y Los Tres Ositos. It was awesome.

The reason I didn’t sleep this weekend is a good one, and very worth having to skip my class this afternoon. Quilmes Rock is the biggest rock festival in Argentina and was held at the River Plate Stadium. It started last weekend with one night showcasing Ozzy Osbourne and Korn. I didn’t go. I went this past Friday, Saturday and Sunday for a grand total of 120 pesos ($40). Although the music was very straightforward rock it was still great to get to know all of the national bands. On Friday, I saw La Vela Puerca and Bersuit Vergarabat. For my first night, it was kind of disappointing. I wasn’t a huge fan of the music, but still had a good time and even got up front and crowd-surfed. Saturday was my favorite night and I saw Las Pelotas and Los Piojos. They were both really good shows and there were also many more people at the stadium (about 50,000). Sunday I was excited to see Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, but ended up getting there a bit too late. The bands I did get to see were Catupecu Machu and Los Divididos.

Sumo is the most famous band in the history of Argentine rock. In 1987, their lead singer died and the band split up into Los Divididos and Las Pelotas. The only band member who didn’t join either of these two bands was the saxophonist, Roberto Pettinato. He made a guest appearance on Saturday and played more than half the set with Las Pelotas. It was awesome to have that addition to the show and to see how excited people got about it.

Los Piojos came out on stage in an old, white VW Bug, much like that the one on the cover of Abbey Road. The name Los Piojos is the Spanish equivalent to The Beatles, so you get the picture…

Lenny Kravitz was supposed to be the main event of the whole festival and play on Sunday, but he backed out a couple weeks before the festival. I wasn’t too upset. However, in homage, Divididos came out wearing afro wigs which was pretty funny.

All in all, the bands didn’t do that much to make their shows memorable or especially exciting. Nothing like The Flaming Lips or Mars Volta…

Friday and Saturday night I went with my friend Lucas and his girlfriend Lucia. Lucia’s birthday was on Thursday, so after the show on Saturday I joined them at a boliche to celebrate. I had planned to go out Friday after the show, but was way too tired to even think about it. I met Luke & Lucia near the stadium at about 8 pm on Saturday and we went inside and went crazy til about 1 when the Piojos were done playing. They went directly to the boliche to meet up with friends who were already there. I went home to shower and drink some wine. The boliche, D’yaboo was about a 10 minute walk from my house which was an excellent change from taxi rides. I thought it might be nice to take the sketchy shortcut through the park.

In Buenos Aires, there’s not that many people out to get you (especially where I live), but the fact that you can never be sure makes people act like their ready to fight. The mentality is that if you look tough enough, the other guy won’t mess with you (even if he wasn’t going to in the first place). This mindset leads to everyone looking tough and dangerous. As I gazed wishfully at the well-lit other side of the park, I approached two guys in the park who slowed down and separated. So, as I passed the first guy I was in the middle of the two of them. They had both stopped walking as I passed and I picked up my pace just slightly. As I passed the second guy we locked eyes and maintained that stern confrontation until I was several feet away. I’m sure they thought I could be just as dangerous as I thought they could have been…you just never know.

Just as I was vowing never to walk through the park again, I passed another group of people with some drunk girl who was obviously the center of attention. As I neared, I realized that the drunk girl was in my program and there was another guy from the program in the group as well. These are the kind of weird encounters that happen to me in Buenos Aires. For how few people I know in this city, it’s crazy how often I run into people. I got to the boliche at about 4 am and got in the 30-minute line. The girls I met who were standing in line in front of me turned out to know my buddy Luke, who I was going inside to meet up with. It took me a few minutes to find Luke/Lucia and their crew. I brought Lucia a bottle of Fernet (her favorite drink, my least favorite) for her birthday. I went home at about 6:30 and as I closed the blinds to my room to go to sleep, I noticed the sun was up.

Monday was a lot of fun also. I managed to wake up early to get to the Office of Immigration. This was the last day I had to finish my application for a student Visa so that I could go on the trips with my program. Although I had heard the whole process was a bitch and took 4-6 hours, it took me less than one hour and I was out of there early enough to make it to my class at UCA. The class had started at 7:45 and I showed up around 10. It ended a little early (before 1) and then I bussed it over to Flacso for my next class (yeah, seems like a lot of class for study abroad…). I went right home after class and took a nap until my first tango class at 7.

There turned out to be 4 other people from my program in my tango class, along with the most diverse group of people I’ve seen in Buenos Aires. There are people of all ages, sizes and nationalities. I learned the basic tango steps, and then went with a couple of the people to an outdoor African drumming show. The 20-piece band plays every Monday at Konex from 8-10 and it was incredible…definitely the most interesting music I’ve heard thus far in Argentina. They were called La Bomba De Tiempo and had a trumpet player and a clarinet/sax player in addition to all the drums. It was also by far the most marijuana-smelling place I’ve been in Argentina (no complaints).

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