Babasonicos' tight microdancing at Creamfields

How many times, at a Creamfields, have artists thanked the audience for applause between songs? Better yet, how many times has there even been applause between songs? Or something like a gap between songs at all? I have no idea, I never counted, but very, very few.

By the time Babasonicos were singing in unison that "this is not a song contest, where they celebrate and applaud," a couple of Saturdays ago, that was exactly what the renegades who picked that boutique experience of psychedelic rock and song over the sets of Nina Kraviz or The Blessed Madonna were doing. It had been a long time since I could make my way so easily toward the barrier at one of their shows. The crowd was exceptionally chill.

I wouldn't use that phrase "the calm before the storm" because -- hold on -- the storm used to last until 6 in the morning and the final hours were carried by Oakenfold or Fatboy Slim. Creamfields was always a national reservoir of party fiends, trashy types, and aspiring gated-community snobs. And as such, we always had Creamfields with shows and sets starting after 5 pm. But this one ended at 1:30 am. It's curious that, given the ticket price, many had to come up with a post-Creamfields plan to finish the night off.

The franchised rave par excellence, which was the gold standard of festivals between 2001 and 2015, returned two weekends ago with throwback oddities: it was daytime, spread across two days, with a nesting doll of bouncers and police checkpoints, and an exaggerated amount of natural and artificial light at the Parque de la Ciudad grounds. I'm also not sure if it's even possible today to throw a party for 100,000 people until 6 am, with open bar, like before, given how tense and surveilled everyone is two decades later. But hey, at least the cars were neatly lined up on Av. Escalada, I'll give them that.

What isn't a curiosity is the inclusion of rock, pop, and let's call it indie artists. Previous Creamfields editions featured Cerati (with Bajofondo), Miranda!, Axel Krygier (of La Portuaria and the composer of, for instance, the Okupas intro) or Poncho, Zuker's electro-rocker band. Guti played a couple of times, already an established DJ in Europe by then but coming from being the keyboardist of Jovenes Pordioseros and Intoxicados. And this time Fermin also played, one of the key musicians and producers of the post-pandemic scene.

Anyway, by the time Babasonicos were singing in unison that "this is not a song contest, where they celebrate and applaud," it was only 10 pm, a very early slot by old-school Creamfields standards. At the then-second-to-last edition, in 2015, Cattaneo was kicking off at that hour, just to start warming things up. The 2024 edition was the first Creamfields where the most acclaimed of Argentine DJs wasn't there. And it was the third for Babasonicos, who had played in 2002 (the 2nd edition) and 2003 (the 3rd).

"We were crushed by a sea of drunk people, coyote eyes high on peyote." I'm not saying that's something that happened to us at Creamfields, I'm saying that's what Adrian started singing with "Tajada," the only new song the band released in the last two years, and the first of a 20-song, 65-minute set in a rock sextet format, without Carca.

Right after came "Fizz," with its invitation to the posers' foam party of social status. I'm not sure why I remember now that the tables for the elevated VIP section facing the main stages at Creamfields used to cost between 4 and 10 thousand dollars. A few days ago it seemed odd that they'd include "Fizz," and even more so as the second song, but at the Creamfields of 21 or 22 years ago, they played "Camarin." Bewilderment still inhabits their concerts.

Then they played "Cretino," one of their most exceptional tracks, which opens with "the day is governed by noise, the night by rumors," and from there goes to the song-contest bit. And from there Babasonicos moved on to "Sin mi diablo," "Irresponsables," "El colmo." They really said we're going to play whatever show we want because no one's going to make us work overtime.

It makes sense. If it had been BBS Tecno, it would have been billed as such, like at Sonar in 2015 and a Fri Music that year in Cordoba. If it had been a remix show, it wouldn't have been a Babasonicos show but rather one by a convoy of producer and DJ friends. It wasn't that hard, you just had to not take the bait, like when Gorillaz Soundsystem was announced in 2008: it was "soundsystem," guys. It's Babasonicos, dudes. These are their songs. Although of course they could have put together an even more dance-floor-oriented set.

The middle stretch of the show had quite a bit of that, but filtered through in a way that at a Movistar Arena or a Quilmes Rock might feel more organic to the zigzagging build of a rock show, which at times can mimic the waves of green and red candles on a low-cap altcoin chart. But at Creamfields, against all odds -- actually no one had predicted anything, except maybe rain -- there was even a girl who managed to request "Como eran las cosas." What did happen was that, amid "Anubis," "Bye bye," "Microdancing" and "Mimos son mimos," "Putita" and "Risa" also appeared. At one point, someone shouted "long live rock."

That entire block gave way to the trippy display of the stage design, another remarkable production by Sergio Lacroix, including walls of lights aimed at the audience as in any rave, screens with the toxic liquidity of lava, dazzling representations of the cosmic/intimate duality of ecstasy. Lots of headbanging, lots of red, lots of renegades, lots of bang bang.

When people say the social contract is broken, I wonder which social contract they're talking about, man. What you need is for the person you look in the eye not to let you down, and Dargelos and his accomplices, the sonic gang, the roleplay crew, tend not to disappoint. Everything else is about replicating that effective intimacy across the highest possible ratio of relationships. And when that fails, be like one of the tandem of "Carismatico" and "Yegua": untouchable.

Back to the show. "La lanza," "Delectrico," and "La pregunta" formed a fantastic block with the metallic taste of the finale and an increasingly carefree dance as the bars went by, as if the limbs of that monster that is a festival audience were starting to shake and activate for what remained of the night. Since they released that track, "La pregunta" turns the field and the stands at Babasonicos shows into a petit electronic party. At Parque de la Ciudad, it came in easy mode: those who were there had been waiting nearly an hour for that song, that crescendo that marked the highest point of the show and the entire day.

By then, a line from one of the first songs was still echoing in my head: "And we'll ask that tomorrow no one comes to make us comply," from "El colmo," like an allegory of the party hidden inside a love song. Near the end, something of that also appears in the "mysterious invocation to find each other" from "Cicatriz #23," which speaks of a romantic encounter and, if you stretch it, also of devotion to an artist, the wait for a dealer, or the experience of being bathed in the crowd at a concert.

The delivery of Babasonicos' songs hits, yes, like the finest pollen. They're a band that caresses your back before slapping your ass. That's why they close the show at Creamfields with "Y que?." Party boy, do you deserve another song?