Spanish techno giants Cristian Varela and DJ Pepo will team up again on November 22nd at Awakenings to close the event with a 2-hour set of Techno with Spanish flair.
Op vrijdag 28 november staat de Studio 80 in het teken van de allesbeslissende strijd tussen goed en kwaad. Om dit muzikale gevecht van een goed eind te kunnen voorzien zijn voor deze editie van Carnivale een aantal superheroes uitgenodigd.
More than 40.000 people, expectations are exceeded and this festival grows more and more rapidly each year. It is said that the Monegros Festival began in 1994 just to celebrate the birthday of the owner of the Florida 135 Club (with more or less 15 artists and 300 people) and that at present, in its 11th edition, has become the one-day electronic music festival in Spain that gather a larger audience in just one day.
An awesome bill that's impossible to enjoy in its integrity: the number of gigs and length of the fest doesn't allow that, there's so many sets in 15 hours as we can find in some other 3-day festivals around Europe. The solution, one would think, would be to be prepared in advance, read the line-up carefully and decide which shows are you choosing for every hour you're gonna spend there, and once you get there you should trace yourself a path so you don't get lost. Well, that's just in theory, because in practice you are swallowed by some of the tent's incredible atmosphere and that "perfect" route is soon forgotten and you just let yourself go. Carpe Diem, that's the one and only solution at the Monegros Festival, just go with the flow and follow the route your heart tells you at every moment: no timetables, no schedules, no nothing, and then you'll realise you'll have enjoyed the best festival of your life.
It felt good to enjoy such energetic and intimate live sets like the ones by Der Dritte Raum or Vitalic, to reach electronic ecstasy by the grace of Alexander Kowalski or Nathan Fake and to feel Sven Väth, Ben Sims, Jeff Mills or DJ Rush making the desert crumble. It was great to experience Zombie Nation's short but impressing live set... although one still tries to figure out why they had to cut their set when they were at their peak, even more when the artist that was scheduled next -Sideral- finally dropped off the bill. And let's not forget the amazing gigs by James Holden, Alter Ego, Marco Carola, Richie Hawtin, Dave Clarke or Cypres Hill, who were playing for the first time in Spain and delighted the audience.
Despite such an amazing line-up, the audience was the best thing about the festival. Thousands and thousands of raised arms moving at the same time, faces of pleasure close to ecstacy, emotions always ready to break out, feeling and absorbing every sound, every beat. Impressing. Overwhelming. To live the Monegros Festival in one's flesh is a must for every electronic music festival lover, since it's a one-off and so it's its audience that we're pretty sure that will keep growing, fighting together against dust, heat, overcrowded spaces or lack of water.
Besides a few other mishaps that are common in festivals such as this (power cuts, disinformation, agglomeration, sound problems, lack of trash containers, etc.), we'd like to stress, like we just said, the dangerous and unexplainable lack of water facilities. There were some sprinklers that sprayed water to those who needed it more, but that wasn't enough for such a large crowd and such an overwhelming heat, despite the Red Cross brought in more water tanks at 5 in the morning.. No sinks, no hoses, no fountains, not even any bars open after 12 pm (more or less), even though there was water bottles in them and the festival was still going. Let's remember this is happening in the middle of the desert and there's no bar next door or nearby gas station where you can buy something to drink. To deny water to those who need it badly in such conditions is really dangerous, and sometimes can be fatal. We hereby strongly suggest to the festival organization crew that they should take good care of that next year: it'll make more people feel that's going to be worth to come the year after that.
Despite this, we’d like to congratulate and thank the organization for the immense effort that an event such as this takes, for such a kickass bill and wish them all the best so we all can enjoy further editions in the future and also the new indoors festival that will take place in winter.
Text and photos: Rosa Victoria Mauricio & Patrick González Martino
