By Marcha Editorial Staff (Article published thanks to the permission of the friends of www.marcha.org.ar) @marchorgar
A chronicle of a night that was pure illusion and ended in two deaths that cast a shadow over everything. Responsibilities that must be addressed and journalistic negligence that is rampant. In the midst of it all, the disaffected continue to be the ones who always lose.
It's difficult to write with yesterday's diary in hand: He says there were 10, or 7, or 2 deaths at Indio Solari's last concert.
We are reporters and we were part of the "mass." We arrived exhausted at the buses and cars that would take us back. We began to learn of the tragedy through countless missed calls. We had no signal (it's difficult to get a signal in crowds of people: marches or concerts; we know you have to be patient), and we started waiting for news from those who were there (second rule: it takes time to get there—to the vehicles, to the meeting points, to the houses). after any concert, especially those of Los Redondos/IndioDetails and delays are irrelevant now; what matters is that there were two deaths, and that overshadows everything else that can be said.
There was a concert, there was: entry was even more orderly than in previous years; in many cases, tickets weren't stopped (also a constant: partly because of the idea that no one should be left out – to avoid repeating the mistake that cost Walter his life – and partly because, how many people do you have to have to stop tickets? At Racing's checkpoints, for example, there were several pre-entry checkpoints, with barriers limiting access and It was one of the shows with the most knives and chases); and there was no police in the vicinity, simply because since that raid in which Walter Bulacio was arrested and beaten to death, in addition to the anti-police lyrics broadcast by the host, No uniform is welcome at Ricoteros concerts.
It was because of a rain that really soaked me…
111 days had passed since that announcement: the rematch would happen. That concert that the Olavarría government had banned for Patricio Rey y Sus Redonditos de Ricota...It would be a debt paid with the presentation of El Indio and the air conditioning fundamentalists at the La Colmena rural property in that Buenos Aires province town. Since then, the only concern surrounding the rematch was whether or not it would be Carlos Solari's last show, as he suffers from Parkinson's disease, which is progressing and casting doubt on the continuation of his work on stage. And let's make a brief digression here: one mistake Indio has made has been his recent tendency to... to publicly emphasize that death is nipping at his heels, His illness could soon force him off the stage, so each show could be his last. This has intensified since the last concert, which is why, despite thousands of tickets being sold, added to the thousands of people estimated to be going without a ticket, To that number had to be added thousands of people who had never attended the "mass" for fear that this would be the last one and that Indio wouldn't give any more concerts. Nobody (especially the younger ones) wanted to be left with the regret of never having seen Los Redondos or Indio., to experience the procession from within, And those who had ever seen it didn't want to miss what seemed to be heading towards being the last supper.
Shortly before ten o'clock at night, the band took to the stage to play Bluebeard vs. lethal love, As another act of revenge, settling the score from last year in Tandil, when someone in the audience threw a shoe onto the stage and the singer decided to cut short the song that had barely begun. Shortly before ten, it was a full-blown party, although there was a particular energy in the air, with Indio Solari not so musically engaged and more focused on something that wasn't quite right in the venue.
The fourth song was playing, Dirty Clothes, when Gaspar and the Indian noticed that in front of them, many people were falling and being trampled. “"Where are the Civil Defense people? There are people lying on the ground. If they keep pushing like this, we're not going to finish the show."”, Solari shouted from the stage, who also asked his audience to move back two meters And he warned about what he had asked for in a statement days earlier, that of "taking care of those around us" and going out to have fun.
It took quite some time for the show to resume., although the situation did not improve. The problems continued ahead; other fans were hanging from the sound towers to watch the show from above, and more people were entering from the back., The enormous space was getting smaller and smaller. And on stage, everything unfolded with a musical disconnect that left the audience with the feeling that something serious was happening.
There –disconnected and all– Indio asked for two things: he spoke to the generation of the 70s so that they would contact the Grandmothers if they had any doubts about their identity (“Nobody is going to change their lives –he clarified– But they deserve to know who they are.”"); and warned about the possibility of lowering the age of criminal responsibility, explaining that statistics on children under 14 years of age who commit crimes are minimal.
Minutes later, the feeling was that of finishing a show that for some reason wasn't fulfilling the setlist, a show that had been shortened. and that it wasn't a party for anyone.
The flood of misinformation began to arrive: It was known that newspapers aligned with the government had not sent journalists to cover the show. Even the official Télam news agency published erroneous information in the early hours of the morning, prompting a response from its internal commission, which sees the precariousness of work as the crack through which unchecked information seeps in.
In addition to the misrepresentation of what was happening, the opinions circulating on social media from both the right and the left regarding Indio Solari did not contribute to what was perceived as necessary: to help, to be bridges so that family and friends could know the condition of their loved ones. In that sense, a large network was set up to begin to learn the information that the absent journalism could not provide: lists of those hospitalized, people with delayed buses, stranded without phone signal or even with dead batteries.
And that's where a topic that is rarely considered now comes into play, It is the solidarity and feeling of brotherhood that has been woven in these recitals for years. Everything is shared; someone who falls is helped, the broken ones are supported until they wake up, the well-being of children is prioritized (yes, they are taken, as Cromañon was taken, out of a desire to share what is part of a life, of a feeling) in the face of a stronger avalanche, and in Hehehe hugs the person next to him/her as if it were a goal by your team.
With so much smoke, the beautiful, fierce fire cannot be seen.
Responsibilities cannot be evaded: The State, first and foremost, because it is the guarantor of all of society. That a city like Olavarría (not even developed for tourism) accepts responsibility for the "world's biggest pogo" is the responsibility of the mayor's office. There is also the private organization of the recital, And there we can revisit past experiences and feel that yes, everything is always on the verge of exploding at any large gathering. That the entrances are already starting to feel tight and uncomfortable; that the exits are usually even worse, not only because the physical exhaustion that comes from the concert and the kilometers traveled and the hundreds of blocks walked, But it's not just the closed streets, the detours, the few exit routes; the fact that the mosh pits and stampedes worsen as the show progresses and become unbearable at times. All of that is true. It's also true that we've made a cult of this very thing, and that most people always came back because all of that was compensated for by other rituals that have nothing to do with the music itself and that develop over the hours or days leading up to the show.
That's why it sounds hypocritical to listen to or read media outlets that have never lived up to expectations. (or rather, that they never came down from their pedestals of opinion) of what happened at each concert; or that those same media outlets speak of the victims from a paternalistic place: they are the ones who offend our kids every day when they label them black, slum dwellers, drug addicts, thieves, murderers… That is why, also, when the spokesperson for the National State, Mauricio Macri, says that this happens when “the rules are not followed,” it is a contradiction when the mayor of Olavarría, Ezequiel Galli, It belongs to the “change” proposed by his party.
Let's go back a few years. It's interesting, the press raised this point regarding the Los Redondos concerts. Following the April 2000 River Plate match, in which the "riots" and the uproar stirred up by the press, aligned with the same criminalization of youth that they maintain today, were already infamous, the newspaper's chronicle The Nation held: “It shouldn’t be long before local psychologists add a new clinical expression to their lexicon: ”ricotero syndrome’”. What did they mean?: “It could be defined as the fear that the band led by Indio Solari provokes among people who live near the place where he gives a concert”Neighbors terrified by the “vandalism,” women horrified by the transformation of their neighborhood, and homeowners fearful of the invasion of their private property were a true reflection of the ever-widening chasm. which would lead to the 2001 crisis.
Yesterday, the people of Olavarría opened the doors of their homes, went out to the door to sell food or drink, He printed t-shirts with the name of his city and rented out the bathrooms in his house or the electrical outlets with cell phone chargers.
What emerges with some clarity, amidst so many shadows – nothing is simple in this plot, complexities surface again and again – is that the Ricotero ritual, the pilgrimage to see Indio, the “mass”, have transcended the creator. Like any popular mass phenomenon, Indio responds to a logic that at times escapes his will, that is to say, The process is independent of the artist's will, in this case. In the singer-audience relationship, there's a constant give and take. That is, the artist sets certain rules (chooses the venue, date, and ticket price), but knows that, for example, they have to respect certain customs imposed by their fans. Namely: can anyone imagine an Indio Solari concert that doesn't end with HeheheThis responds to a need imposed by the masses, by the public., who wants to bid farewell to the ritual with one last superhuman effort, where the weariness from hundreds or thousands of kilometers traveled and other frustrations are concentrated that are downloaded with that final pogo.
