By José Gandue @Gandour Photo by Rodrigo Morales Ortiz @megapulse
Friends organizing the Rock al Parque 2019 festival: Let's make a deal. Let's start from the premise that we all want this year's festival, taking place on June 29th and 30th and July 1st, to be a success, and that everyone who goes to Simón Bolívar Park enjoys themselves, feels proud of the city, and doesn't lose their love for music. But for this to happen, let's agree on some rules so that, if not all, then most of the people involved can understand them. benefit from the event.
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Let's begin. For the moment, they've announced an overwhelming number of international guests, with a long and distinguished career. and a career that deserves to be enjoyed by audiences of all ages. These are people who carry on their shoulders many songs we all recognize and a knowledge that deserves to be shared with our local artists. That said, let's be careful: They deserve the best attention from the festival's production team., but never to the detriment of local representation. Although the selection of district bands has not yet been completed, those selected through the Bogota calls for applications must already be guaranteed a strong media presence for their promotion before and during the event and, of course, all the advantages to ensure that their performances are on time, with the agreed duration and with the required technical conditions so as not to be diminished compared to their foreign colleagues.
There are precedents in the history of Rock al Parque in which Bogota's artistic expression has come to be seen as an uncomfortable decoration by some And where, from the organizers' perspective, they haven't properly cared for the city's treasures. Clear examples abound: We need only recall that at the height of Ultrágeno, one of the best rock bands the Colombian capital has ever produced, this quartet was prevented from showcasing their talent to the masses., because the producers of the event in 1999 did not know how to handle the arrogance of Cafe Tacvba and Molotov during their sound checks, This resulted in the band led by Amós Piñeros being excluded at the last minute due to lack of stage time. Similar situations, though less serious, occurred in other editions, where the stage crew (people who live just a few blocks from our homes and who never leave after the festival with the big-name guests) It treats the host musicians as cannon fodder and limits them in terms of minutes, backline, and stage space.
It is important to emphasize something that the festival's management seems to forget rather easily: Rock al Parque was born and has its reason for being mainly in favoring the Bogota rock scene. There must be a credible and reliable strategy for presenting the artists who represent us, and its promotion must require that both large and medium and small media outlets that will cover this twenty-fifth edition Dedicate a significant portion of your news coverage to showcasing the talent in our market. Let's put it this way: Idartes, the event's producer, must understand that it's pointless for a television channel, a newspaper, or a widely circulated magazine, when talking about the festival, to only focus on reporting about Fito Páez, Amigos Invisibles, or any other of the international acts contracted, and not mention anything at all about the Bogota artists. That kind of press coverage is not good for Rock al Parque. Does it seem exaggerated to you? Not to me, honestly. This is a public festival, funded with our tax money, not a private event that, like some others out there, even with abundant sponsorship from the nation's major banks and a few mobile phone companies behind them, isn't able to properly treat or pay a good portion of the city's bands. We can't talk about favors here, we're talking about respect.
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I have no personal problem with Juanes. What's more, I'm sure he's a good guy, that he helps old ladies cross the street, and that he always says "please" when asking for anything. I also have no problem with his music, which has always bored me to tears (but that's my problem, not his). My criticism of his presence at this year's Rock al Parque is something else entirely.
The first thing I notice is that There's a rather murky feeling that some journalists, through their speeches, seem to be telling us that the festival owed it to the artist., that we owed him a debt. Within their demagoguery, they assure us that Juanes helped Colombian rock grow and that he has never been properly recognized for it. They also tell us that his musical talents have allowed him to share the stage with the Rolling Stones, Metallica, and who knows how many other members of the rock pantheon. «"He never got sick"», they say. Perfect. I insist: Juanes is a nice, well-liked guy who probably pays the bill among his friends and buys everyone drinks for the night. But their thing has little to do with the spirit of Rock al Parque. It's more related to the extreme sensationalism of a sector of Colombian music that, rather than questioning the flaws of the prevailing system, serves its worst defects. Now Juanes is coming to Rock al Parque in his darkest hour, after a damaging falling out with his former manager and trying to win back the favor of the press, which has largely forgotten him. Now he's coming to steal the spotlight. Rock al Parque didn't need to include it in its program, and now, without realizing it, it runs several risks that I don't think the organizers have carefully considered.
Do you remember what was said in previous paragraphs about the role of the media at the festival? Well, in 1999, one of the sponsors at that time, the Bogotá Telephone Company, advertised its presence at Rock al Parque by saying «"Café Tacvba, Molotov and 56 more bands"». That was propaganda that did a lot of damage to the event. Now, without being fortune tellers, we predict that more than one will headline their pages «"Juanes and the rest.". This is how the same media personalities who we have never seen throughout these years walking along Simón Bolívar at these concerts will act, and now we will see them arriving and demanding their private spaces during the show of this and other luminaries. That, I insist, does a disservice to a local scene that is already quite messed up and has never received the attention it needs.
Okay, Juanes has already been confirmed. There's nothing more to be done. Let's treat him well, as he and the other participants deserve. But I suggest putting it at the beginning of the final day of the festival. Yes, like they did with Kraken, when they performed with the Philharmonic Orchestra. Inviting them as a healthy draw, where the artist's fans, many of whom are attending Rock al Parque for the first time, can decide, after the performance, whether they want to stay and experience the true atmosphere of the event or not. If we invite Juanes to Rock al Parque, that's the only thing it's good for: For those who have only been exposed to music through commercial radio and mass publications, Discover the true heart of rock in this city.
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In the end. The twenty-fifth edition of Latin America's largest free festival brings several points that we must take care of. This cannot be a propaganda party for a mayor who is on his way out and wants to raise his already quite low approval ratings among the young population of Bogota. Rock al Parque, regardless of who is in charge of the mayor's office in the Colombian capital, was, is and should be a recurring example of peace and coexistence in a country that has lived through war for so many years. A festival that must constantly reaffirm why this city was chosen a few years ago as a World City of Music by UNESCO (a detail now forgotten in the public sphere, as it doesn't align with partisan interests). This is the twenty-fifth edition, and what comes after the last confetti falls on Monday, July 1st, demands that, if we want this project to truly survive, It's time to think about its reinvention, its rethinking. Otherwise, it may turn into a big, bright white elephant, only useful for waving the flags of a few opportunists. and not as the Latin American democratic cultural icon it once dreamed of being.
