Ostensibly there was a path between the “orchestra” space and the “hill”, but by this time even this had become full of latecomers who figured it wasn’t worth shoving father in and had contented themselves with standing on the path. And inevitably, at some point, the steady but trickling progress through the masses ground to a complete halt, complicated by the stream from the other direction and the woman who – despite all logic and maternal instinct – insisted in letting her small son try to trycicle his way through the crowds with admirable determination for someone who is knee high. And we’re stopped. And no one knows we’re really stopped and not just dawdling, and someone sees that the path is blocked by stationary people who don’t look like they want to move. And someone decides to move the process along, and suddently I’m being shoved into the person in front of me, who was shoved by the person behind them, who was shoved by the person behind them… but it’s still not moving forward and the mass compresses like air in a bottle. You could almost taste the stench of so many people pressed on one another as your body is sandwiched. I could feel the contours of the body of the person behind me; I knew he was male and wearing a belt, and considerably taller than I am, and I realized with a sting that my bracelet, a wide metal ring open on one side, had caught on someone and was now almost stabbing into my arm. A string of teenies who had linked into a chain were slowly torn from one another. Thankfully, the girl’s escalating cries, bordering on hysteria, of “I can’t get any air! I can’t breathe!” only marginally preceded the eventual release of pressure and we stumbled forward as if air expelled from a balloon.
But it was worth it. The ideal location valiantly defended by our friends was indeed fantastic, as close as you could get to the stage without hitting the mosh pit, and still, as we were on the hill, providing a good view in the stadium-seating-like array. The only problem was that we had to actually stand on said hill, which wasn’t level and allowed no room for sitting down or for moving in any direction besides vertical, and after the arduous fight to our spot, we downed our cokes and beers long before the show began. In an attempt to entertain us, the producers sent a series of beach balls into the crowd which we were supposed to keep afloat; the crowd, in turn, countered with oblong balloons floating lazily from here to there, made of condoms. Someone up and to the left had a Spongebob balloon which eventually escaped, and the entire crowd turned to watched Mr Squarepants floating lazily into the stratosphere, his little foil arm twitching in the breeze as if he were waving us goodbye. He probably had an appointment with the hot air balloon taking off in the background.
It’s something incredible to see so many people in one place. Some estimates say over 40 000 were gathered there; as far as the eye could see there were people, fading into little ecstatic dots. And because the performer – Peter Fox, former frontman of the German hip-hop band Seeed from Berlin – was well known, he didn’t have to convince the crowd. Religion is perhaps the opiate of the masses, but concerts are more likely the adderol of the masses. Hands stretched towards the stage, bobbing with the beat, in the typical gesture which for us at least was the only movement possible in such a tight space.
The band itself consisted of Mr Fox, three backup singers (two ladies and a tattooed man who looked like he moonlighted in movies like the Fast and the Furious), a random guy who danced around with a monkey mask on (makes sense for Peter Fox), and a row of drummers who were probably horribly happy to not also have to wear a monkey mask. And the cool thing was that all of these people, throughout much of the show, were dancing in unison. The drummers were there for both percussion and show, spinning sticks, making shapes with them and meanwhile dancing along. It was like the mutant lovechild of marching band, line dancing and hip hop music.
After two hours of frenetic jumping up and down on the side of the hill, we were subjected to two “opening” groups who were actually “ending” groups, fortified with slurpees and went on our way.
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