Flip flops + mosh pit= Fuck, that hurts

So last night two friends and I went to PersonalFest, a music festival held by one of the 3 major cell phone companies here. Headlining the Saturday round (Friday featured the Offspring) was R.E.M., playing with Bloc Party, Mars Volta, and the Kaiser Chiefs.

Ginny and I got to the festival at about 7 30, having spent most of the day sleeping after getting home at 7 am due to Halloween festivities. About Halloween, for those interested: I went as a garden, have some hot pictures, and will never again take public transportation by myself in full costume. I still can't figure out why the colectivo (bus) driver gave me a free ride; could it have had something to do with the flowered fishnet stockings I was wearing? Mmm, probably not. It might have been all the fake flowers covering me, though. Or the bright green shirt made of fringe. I love Argentine fashion. I didn't go to one costume store.

Anyway, so we got to the concert at 7 30, catching the end of Mars Volta, who sounded as if they sucked BIG TIME. This observation was later confirmed by friends who saw the whole act, severely decreasing my guilt about sleeping the day through. We then saw Bloc Party, randomly running into the friend we were supposed to be meeting there. I kind of liked Bloc Party, who to be honest I'd never heard of before. According to Ginny, who is a concert goddess, Block Party's kind of a "pretentious indie band."

Anyway, they put on a good show and their British accents made the "muchos, muchos, gracia" sound even funnier than it already did. Ever band kind of forgot they weren't in an English speaking country, and would ask questions like "Are you ready to dance?!?!" which got...absolutely no response.

Argentines have bizarre concert etiquette, by the way. There is no cat calling, no yelling, but sometimes they start chanting like they would at a futbol game. They don't dance, rarely jump up and down, and have no qualms about smoking a joint or, like the CREEPY ASS guy behind us, doing a line or two of cocaine. There was also NO festival security evident, which became a serious problem later on. Foreshadowing: I should have worn closed toed shoes and not brought an expensive purse.

Anyway, so once Bloc Party was over Kaiser Chiefs (who I had also never heard of, sorry all) started on the stage opposite ours. Instead of going to watch them, since we could hear perfectly well from where we were and it was projected on the screens of our stage for better enjoyment purposes, we decide to push up to the front so when REM comes on we'll be really close to the stage. This works really well, and while it's crowded and we're SEVERELY sweaty and gross, we have a great view for when an hour and a half later REM takes the stage.

This, by the way, was incredibly stupid and badly thought out. Just saying.

So after quite a while of waiting and chatting while listening to Kaiser Chiefs in the background (not my fave, btw) and making the acquaintance of our cocaine-snorting friend, at 10:10 REM takes the stage. And people start pushing. A lot.

It gets really violent really suddenly, people start trying to rush the stage, pushing, punching, going nuts. Thank god the festival wasn't selling alcohol and didn't let anyone in with any, someone might have died. I'm in flip flops, they're basically getting torn of my feet, I've got my camera in one had and am trying desperately to hold on to my purse with the other. Ginny and Slava and I are shocked; there was really no warning of this before the whole crowd went insane. Apparently it's an Argentine thing.

So after me almost falling in the press of people, Ginny bolting out of the crowd like a bunny rabbit, and Slava literally pulling me back onto my feet, we reached the outer limits of the crowd, completely missing whatever the first song was and "What's the Frecuency, Kenneth?"

However, once we took stock of ourselves and decided nothing was actually broken, the concert full on rocked. R.E.M members may be aging, but their voices and instruments rock, and the stage had a really cool set up. At one point the lead singer went crowd surfing, and it was hilarious watching on the big screen as the security guard had to repeatedly swat away some idiot intent on rubbing Michael Stipe's balding head.

Even though we weren't in the first four rows we were still decently close to the stage, with enough room to both dance around and breathe. Favorite moment of the night? 3rd song Stipe opens with "We are openly and unapologetically from the United States, and this very old song is about how we are going in the wrong direction. However, that could all change in the next 3 days!" The big screens fill with HUGE pictures of Obama, and the Americans in the crowd go wild. The Argentines have no idea what's going on, but happily chant "Raym! Raym! Raym!"

They played all the greats, which was a huge relief since one of my friends here told me that her boyfriend had seen them a couple times live, and they usually played really abstract stuff instead of their standard set. However, they literally got through every one of their best songs, and I knew the lyrics to all but three that they played. They were so note-perfect for a few songs that we wondered if they could be lip-synching, but then came this one I didn't know that involved a lot of octave jumps, which Stipe was just not making. While the experience was mildly painful, at least we knew we were watching a live show. :)

The concert lasted about 2 hours, ending with "Man on the Moon" as the 4th or 5th encore. Stipe then jerked around on the guitar for a couple minutes, and we left. After a ridiculously long 1 am walk to the Barrio Chino, we finished the night with some satisfyingly greasy Chinese food. Great Saturday, and best of all the concert was in Belgrano, meaning for the first time EVER we finished the night close to my house and I walked home at 3 am.

Coming soon: homelessness in Buenos Aires, and if someone tells me how to put them in a blog, pictures?