musicblogspace: ROCK AL PARQUE HAS BEGUN

Sunday, November 2, 2008

ROCK AL PARQUE HAS BEGUN

The most important rock festival in South America is taking place this weekend in Bogotá, Colombia (Nov1,2,3). The free "Rock al parque" festival in it's XIV version started yesterday with the metal day which is the day that attracts more public. 80 thousand people went yesterday to see the local bands and the international bands that included Paradise Lost and Carcass (England), Ratos de Porao (Brazil), and Muscaria (Ecuador). The other 13 bands that played yesterday where local and national bands. For the record Colombia is a very strong country on metal music production.
It's a shame I'm not in Bogotá for Rock al parque and eventhough I never go to the metal day, it's a shame I couldn't see Koyi K Utho, a Bogtá based band that has played 5 times in different versions of this fest. and that's sponsored by GIBSON guitars.
Today and tomorrow are my favorite days of the festival because the two stages will present diverse music souch as 1280 almas, a rock legend from Bogotá, Gondwana, Nawal and Sargento García for the reggae-tropical lovers, la Kinky Beat (Spain), Black rebel motorcycle club (U.S.A) and BLOC PARTY!!! (England).It's really bad that I'll miss Bloc party's show, specially now when they just released their new album...
In terms of organization and weather conditions (it's an outdoors fest)I really hope this year's Rock al parque is better than last year's because last year an unexpected ice-rain storm fell upon Bogotá and chaos ruled because besides the fact that the park was covered with ice rain (10 c.m) people went CRAZY (remember that Colombia has no seasons so we're not used to those types of "natural hazards").
And now that we're into natural phenomenons this year the slogan for Rock al parque is: "Rock for the water and the earth". Maybe some of Radiohead's and Al Gore's global warming awareness is filtering to the south. Anyway, I'll have to wait to see some of the youtube videos and maybe share them with you because this year's Rock al Parque will present 37 national bands and 15 international bands. We'll just have to wait to see how it went and while we do, let's check out some videos:
Bloc Party