Reporting In From Creamfields Buenos Aires

If you've been reading our blog, or know us personally, you know that we consider ourselves party connoisseurs with a heavy emphasis on dance music. When we knew that we'd be in Buenos Aires in time for Creamfileds, it was a no brainer that we would go. It was listed on our honey fund, and appropriately enough, was gifted to us by our friends Ripp & Steph. They are two of our best friends in the whole world (Ripp introduced us, I was a groomsman at their wedding, plus a million other stories) and they themselves had gone to Creamfields BA two years ago with tremendous results. I myself had been to the Creamfields festival in the UK in 1998 and 2001, so needless to say our excitement level was pretty high.

As it turns out, being a party connoisseur does not necessarily mean you have party preparation foresight. A good example of this is our friend Wes. Wes considers himself an alcoholist (completely different than an alcoholic), and knows what it takes to spend a night drinking without becoming a complete mess. He knows that if you go out for a night of heavy drinking that you should eat a large dinner. He knows that if you go out in a far off neighborhood you should look up the number for the local car service in case you can't find a ride home. He knows that if you hypothetically end up at Flashdancers, it's not necessary to tell your significant other. All good examples of foresight and preparation. For Creamfields, we did the opposite. 

We woke up at an early, respectable hour on Saturday morning and the weather was gorgeous. For whatever reason, we decided to go to the park and exercise for the first time in over four months. The park by our apartment has public work out stations plotted along a course running a few kilometers around the park. Several rounds and two hours later of push ups, dips, sit ups, and gasp, a little jogging, we were exhausted and headed home. No foresight or thought was given to the fact we were endeavoring to stay up all night dancing. An activity that usually requires one to be well rested, loose and limber. We on the other hand were now exhausted, sore and achy. Totally ready to party.

As much as we would have loved to take the party bus to the party, we had yet to figure out the Collectivo (what they call the busses here), and instead opted to take the Subte. Again, not a whole lot of appropriate preparation going on here as it took us two ours to reach the venue. The upside, was when we transferred to the trolley, we got a brief tour of some of the more unsavory neighborhoods of BA. Probably not as bad as the worst neighborhoods, but a good reminder that we were living in a one of the nicer areas. The downside is that we missed one of the scheduled DJs we were hoping to see.

The trolley ride was long and packed like sardines, but every stop closer we got to our destination illicited a little more enthusiasm from fellow passengers. When it reached the last stop, there was a moment of hesitation as to if this was truly the final stop, followed by cheers and a mass, eruptive exodus. There was no need to get our bearings or figure anything out from there as we just followed the crowd. The walk towards the main gate was flanked by every manner of vendor typical for such a gathering. Fake merchandise, beer, water, street meats, live chickens, etc. I made the last one up, but one can dream.

The entrance was well managed and security was a breeze. We were in. After a quick time check we knew it was too late to catch any significance of Jooris Voorn's set and had also missed the CouchSurfing.com meetup we hoped to join. We spent the next half hour orientating ourselves to the festival grounds and figuring out who was playing and where. We were in Buenos Aires and were determined to see the local hero, Hernan Cattaneo. Eagerly awaiting his arrival, the tent was packed with several thousand people who I assumed were Argentinean based on the greeting they gave him. He hadn't even started playing yet, but his mere appearance on the stage caused the crowd to erupt. I don't think I had ever seen such reaction for a DJ without even playing his first track. Too bad we didn't care much for what he did play after he came on because it was kind of a snooze fest circa post early century progressive. If your not into EDM and don't know what I'm talking about, don't worry because you wouldn't care and you're not missing out. 

We didn't want to miss out on anything either and switched back to Plan A of seeing Booka Shade. Unfortunately, their set was all but over at this point so we needed a plan A.2. I get my numerical ordering skills from an old George Carlin skit, it's confusing but hilarious in it's simplicity. Go ahead and YouTube it, I'll wait... Anyway, Ellen Alien was playing in the same tent as Luciano right before him so we decided to give her a second chance. We had just seen her this past August in Berlin and weren't impressed. It was perplexing because she's been around forever and has a good reputation. Perhaps that night in Berlin was just an off night? Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, quote George W. Bush. So, let me get this straight... You're getting paid thousands of dollars to entertain thousands of people using thousands of dollars worth of technology, yet the simple task of beat matching still eludes you after a long and prosperous career? I can't think of any nice ways of saying she sucked, so yeah...

The benefit of sticking out Ellen Allien was getting front and center for a true professional. Thankfully, Luciano took the stage and saved the day with his long hair and ridiculously deep V. I couldn't name the tracks but didn't care. They were good, groovy, danceable and got the crowd going. The night had finally taken a turn for the best. The best part ever though, was the security guard telling people to put their shirts back on. This might possibly be the greatest act of bouncing I have ever seen in my life. Maybe the laws are different down here, but this is just phenomenal. Anyone who has ever been to a club, concert, festival whatever and has been brushed up against by the sweaty, stubbly shirtless guy should immediately come party in Buenos Aires for relief. 

At this point we had exhausted our supply of beer tickets and headed out to acquire more. This is where we entered the twilight zone. Dun dun dunnnnn!!!! In a world where sixty thousand people come to dance and listen to electronic music all night, and signs everywhere proclaiming alcohol is served until 5am... The beer runs out by 2am. At first I thought maybe I didn't understand what the ticket vendor was saying, so we tried another ticket booth and then another. It was hard enough for my brain to comprehend talking in another language, but trying to comprehend how an event of this magnitude could run out of beer just wasn't registering. I'm still in denial about how such a thing can happen. Imagine going to the Indy 500 and half way through being told there was no more beer. Unlike the firing of a known, child rapist cover up conspirator, this indeed would have been cause for a riot. They might not have ever run out of beer at Penn State football games, but nobody was raping children at Creamfields. Maybe the local alcohol control board in Buenos Aires knows something I don't. 

As much as I couldn't let go of this new beer-less reality, it was time to move on and see the DJ we have been stalking for the past five years one more time. Sven Vath, who has been mentioned in our blog before, has always held a special place in our hearts. Mostly because we love his music and what he stands for, but also because of the rarity and difficulty in seeing him perform (he only comes to NYC once in a blue moon). This time it felt more like a reunion party as we were familiar with more than half his set. It was the the seventh time we'd seen him in just over five months. Prior to that, we had only seen him six times in five years. A reversal of fortune that bordered on gluttony, but it was borderline magical to be reminded of the time we spent in Ibiza. Granted, at this point the exhaustion had reduced us to sitting on the outskirts of the tent and just enjoying the music instead of full on dancing,but we were thankful nonetheless. 

From there we headed over to catch Danny Howells at the Cream Arena. John Digweed was finishing his set and it was so over packed and over flowing you think it could easily have been mistaken for the main stage. Three tracks in and my legs and stamina were giving out. The sorry excuse for an energy drink they were schilling here just wasn't cutting it and the thought of trying to catch a cab while 60,000 people left the grounds at the same time was frightening. Though I made the decision to leave early, Claire later confessed that she secretly hoped I was ready to go. Unlike Sven, Danny Howells is in NYC all the time. It would be far better to catch him back home with all our friends than here with thousands of strangers.

It wasn't that hard to find a cab home after we figured out the traffic was being detoured one block away. Our Spanish was good enough to give directions and get us home safely. Contrary to the nightmare scenarios we've read about, he didn't take us the long way home, try to rob us, or any other douchery you could imagine. It was a long drive, but it was nice to see more of the typical neighborhoods in BA instead of just the rich or poor. We were given a greater sense of size of the city and likened it to home. Where else can you spend two hours on public transit and still be in the same city, only to have the same trip take just 30 minutes by cab on the way back.

Overall, it was a successful night. Not stunning or stellar, but as we learned long ago, these kind of nights are always better when you're with your friends.  As we learned that night however, those kind of nights are always better when they don't run out of beer.

Spreading love and awesomeness across the universe.

Day 63 - Monday, August 29th

Me outside amnesia in the early morning :)

It has occurred to me that those of you reading this blog who do not know bill and I personally may not understand the whole "cocoon" thing. Cocoon is a techno record label based in Frankfurt owned and run by our favorite Dj/shaman Sven Vath. There is also cocoon club in Frankfurt (we had an earlier post about that when we were in Frankfurt last month) and there is a cocoon party Monday nights at Amnesia in Ibiza. Bill lived on the island years ago when he was working for a tour company, and loved going to this party, which is now in it's twelfth year. We went to Ibiza together 3 years in a row specifically for cocoon, we skipped a last year, but now we are BACK BABY!

So, because we had to travel such a long and expensive distance to get to Ibiza every year we went balls to the wall and always made a costume that corresponded to each seasons theme. Ibiza is a little like New York in that the most eccentric and fun loving people populate the island, and no one would look twice if you were walking down the street with no pants on and say, a lampshade on your head. I have not done the lampshade thing but bill has witnessed it. Ibiza is about being free, funky, creative, energetic and generally having a good time. One year we made disco helmets, another year we went in head to toe gold with huge cocoon logos on our heads, another year we made these crazy hats and bill literally cut out thousands of tiny silver Mylar squares and made a disco jacket. These things took months to put together but definitely got us noticed. Last time we were here we strolled into amnesia and sven's tour manager came up to us and said "were you guys here last summer in silver helmets?" and promptly put us in VIP with a stack of drink tickets.

So when we decided to leave Berlin and go to Ibiza we had 3 days to get a costume together. This seasons theme was "cocoon heroes" which, in my opinion, is really about the all stars of the party but something got lost in the translation to English. I bought a bodysuit from American apparel and was basically done. Boobs and legs will take you a long way in this world but bill had to work a little but harder on his outfit. We found the home depot of Berlin the day before we left and lo and behold, they had silver mylar tape. And hot pink spray paint. Two things a person cannot live without in this life! He bought a black v neck tee and the plan was to put a design on the shirt using the tape. Now we had to make the flash symbol that was used on the flyer. This is bill's shirt going thru the creative process:

And him showing off his handy work:

He contemplated cutting down one of the local campaign signs from a street lamp because they were made of corrugated plastic, but we thought better of it because that's probably a crime or something. We settled for a cardboard ikea box we found on the street. He cut the shapes out, and packed the cardboard with some wire hangers in his suitcase. This would have to be assembled when we got there because the finished product would be about 4 feet tall.

We flew easyjet, which is basically a free for all party on a plane. It was the worst 3 hours of my life. It was our own fault for booking a flight to Ibiza on a saturday night but these crazy ass Russians sitting behind us were in full blown party mode. People were hanging out in the aisle of the plane dancing and drinking and screaming at the top of their lungs and being nuts. We have never flown easyjet before and if you haven't either here's a tip: there's no seat assignments. When they let people out of the gate to walk across the Tarmac to the plane people bolted out like it was the running of the bulls and were fighting over seats. Luckily bill and I found seats together but it was still an awful flight. One thought did occur to me as I was holding onto my tray table for dear life praying that the plane wouldn't go down because I did not want my last moments on earth to be with these insane Russians, and that thought was we had done the most dangerous thing we could ever do- booking a one way ticket to the island. There was a strong possibility we would never come back to reality.

Saturday night we went to bed early and Sunday we hit the beach. Suspicions from the night before were confirmed when after being on the beach for all of 10 minutes bill declared he wanted to spend the next 3 weeks here until we had to go to Vienna. Later that evening we stopped by cafe mambo to visit our old friend Luciano, who works for pacha selling club tickets, and to get some sangria. Luciano was happy to hear we would be hanging around for awhile, bill and him have known each other for about 10 years. They met when bill was working on the island and he's always glad to see us when we pop up every summer. We mentioned that we were going to cocoon and he immediately whipped out his phone and said (in his Italian accent) "ah yes! Well, I will put you on the guest list then!" admission to parties in Ibiza are around 60€ per person, sometimes more, sometimes a little less. So this just saved us a shitload of money. I like saving money, especially when i don't have a job. He also started calling bill "king bill" because he assumes we are somehow magically rich to spend 3 weeks here, which is not the case either.
Anyways, getting to the point of the story. We go to amnesia on Monday. Bill has to drive, obviously because I don't, so we always bring a bottle of vodka in the car with a mixer. We park the car at the club and do a little pre game action. Drinks inside are literally 16€, which is like $22 so we don't really do a whole lot of drinking, or we would be in the poorhouse. That's another Ibiza money saving tip, your welcome. We have our outfits, our flash, our camera and we are ready to go. An hour into the party we are hanging out on he terrace and people start asking us if they can take a picture with our flash. It's crazy how what started out as a little shitty cardboard box was making people so excited! We started taking pictures with everyone, of everyone, and waving the flash around above the crowd. Phrank, the cocoon photographer who has been taking pictures of us for 3 years saw us and motioned for me to come over to the booth. I climbed up onto the railing (in 5" stilettos, not the safest thing) and leaned over. He says to me that he recognizes us and we are the fucking craziest people he's ever seen. I laugh at him and tell him we recognize him also and ask him if he will hold our flash for a picture and he of course obliges.

Then he says to come with him. I get bill and we go around and follow him upstairs into VIP, then he takes us through some other door backstage. They have a whole photoshoot area where they take pictures of the DJs and their friends for the marketing of the party. He announces to the assistants that he has found "the real heroes" and proceeds to do a shoot with me, then bill, then us together. we do shots of hierbas (a local Baleric liquor) and we hang out to watch him shoot a group of friends that came in after us. One of the assistants was a lovely British girl and she explained that the photos will appear on the large screens in the club during that nights party and in about a week they will have an album of the shots they did that night on Facebook and the cocoon website, and at the end of the season she will email all the photos to everyone.

After hanging a little bit longer security came through and yelled at bill because he had shorts on. So we went back out onto the floor and danced to some of the best music I've ever heard in my life. Besides that, I think we spent half the night just taking pics of people holding the flash. I've never seen so many people so happy. The best is when you meet someone who doesn't speak any English at all because you have the same conversation, it's just through smiles and photos and the occasional high five. We must have at least 2 dozen pics of the people we met but here are just a few.

We decided to leave a little after 6 because I couldn't feel my feet anymore. I'm a stiletto veteran but dancing for 6 hours straight in high heel platforms was too much for me. We were accosted in the parking lot with people who wanted to take a picture with the flash and we struck up a convo with a spanish guy and between his tiny bit of English and bills tiny bit of Spanish we somehow managed to talk for about a half hour debating the location of the after party.

Back in the car we voted for no after party, went home, slept, and then went to the most beautiful beach at Cala Salada. I'll write about the beaches in a separate post because there are so many that are super. Beautiful that they need a whole page dedicated to them :)

-Claire

Day 23 - Mission Accomplished

Friday, July 22nd

Not only had we purposefully plotted a course for some beach time on our trip, but we also accounted for a little party time. Rather than heading off to Ibiza and spending our entire six month budget in one week, we specifically picked Frankfurt for it's clubs and DJs so we could get the same level of satisfaction for a fraction of the price. We had gone clubbing in Frankfurt before so we knew the drill; Cocoon on Friday night, after-hours at U60311,  Saturday night at Robert Johnston, Sunday afternoon at kameamea beach club (not a real beach, more like Water Taxi Beach in NYC).

The day began as they had tended to, sleeping in, fresh croissants, and an early onset of boredom. We had a good ten hours to  kill before the clubbing began, so we whipped up an aggressive itinerary. The plan was to see the Messe (Convention Center Grounds), followed by the natural history museum, the botanic garden, and the Main tower for a panoramic view of the city at sunset. We get outside and the weather immediately truncates our day. We see the Messe and the museum. The Messe is nothing special as half the grounds were dug up and there were no tours that day. Plus it's at least six months until the Batman live show so Claire does her best kinetic sculpture impersonation and we move on to the museum. It was an easy way to kill an extra hour or so, read all the signs that were in English, saw their anaconda exhibit, tons of fossils, stuffed animals (not the toy kind), and photo exhibit on migratory mating. We left feeling a little smarter, which retrospectively contrasts how we would end the night.

We pre game at the hotel, figure out the tram and head on our way. The main attraction went on at 11:30 so we get there a little early. The club fills up by midnight, the drinks are cheap, the music was FUN, and the night was a blur. We contemplated socializing with strangers at the club as we had done last time we were here, but we spent the entire night on the dance floor which is the least ideal location to hold a conversation. As an added bonus, we catch the first hour of Jooris Voorn's set, but decide to leave the club after a scuffle breaks out and the crowd had dwindled down. We get outside and the sun is up. Wish we had our sunglasses, but bask in the afterglow of a night of good music. The tram pulls up just as we finish buying our tickets, excellent timing. We ride to the Hauptbahnhoff with a few other casualties, but the air is quiet. It's that special time in the morning when it's a mix between people ending their nights and others starting their day. We get back to our room, agree we don't need to hit the after hours club, block out the sun and go to bed. Life is good.

- Bill