Brazil's Skol Beats 2002: The Beat Goes On

Last Saturday (April 20), São Paulo, Brazil, hosted the third edition of what is being called "Latin America's largest electronic music festival." And with 42,000 attending (a complete sell-out), Skol Beats 2002 is the undisputed owner of that title.

Split between four tents and a live stage, the event pumped out 18 hours of several dance styles, played by 54 DJs and 8 live acts and took place at the Interlagos racing circuit, the home of Brazil's annualFormula One Grand Prix. Despite hideous traffic jams on the approach roads and occasional water shortage at some stages, the festival was virtually trouble-free, an uncommon sight in violent Brazil.

Fighting was nowhere to be seen except for maybe a handfull of scuffles,medical teams reported no serious incidents and the police only made five arrests throughout the entire event, all of which drug-related arrests. General drug induced paranoia had hit Brazilian clubbers and ravers in the weeks leading up to the event, after mainstream TV station Globo ran a five day lunch time special on the perils of taking ecstasy. Sending a hidden camera to a psy-trance rave, they bought ecstasy, interviewed doctors and psychiatrists and featured police spokesmen promising to crack down heavily on Skol, prompting a rumour beforehand that a massive raid was organised to happen.

In the end, no raids happened and security proved reasonable although a minority of people were heavily searched as they entered the festival's gates. The festival's vibe also proved to be uplifting and energetic with most people looking dancing and clearly enjoying themselves.

The festival's marquees were co-hosted with famous English clubs: Movement at the drum &bass arena; The End at the tech-house/techno tent; Bugged
Out for the housey tent and Gatecrasher for the prog/trance part. The live stage bill included Kosheen and Fernanda Porto but the highlights were Groove Armada's chilled house band and Technasia's East-West techno-soul clash. Layo & Bushwacka also did their debut live gig, which kept people going until well after 10 am.

At The End tent, Mr. C and Dave Angel rocked the premises and Mr. C actually played two sets, filling in for Joey Beltram one of the lineups rare no shows. Local rising techno DJ/producers Renato Cohen and Anderson Noise, however, matched and even surpassed the foreign guests in terms of imspiring sheer madness on the dancefloor during their sets.

The Bugged Out tent was home to two historical figures of house music: New York giants Todd Terry and François Kevorkian. They were far from disappointing to their legions of local fans, receiving general praise as did Erick Morillo, Tom Middleton and Pete Heller.

In Movement, the arrival of local hero DJ Marky was nothing short of spectacular, being greeted as if he was Brazil's soccer legend Ronald. With 5,000 fans chanting his name, he took a while to stand up from behind the decks, literally trying to hold back tears of emotion. When he finally emerged, the tent erupted. Other DJs in this tent included Patife, DJ Hype, Ed Rush and Bryan Gee. While
Gatecrasher's highlights turned out to be John OO Fleming's hard trance and
Scott Bond's anthems."

Brazil's dance music scene is now the hottest in South America and with the local passion for hedonism and dancing, it's sure to get bigger. The new Ibiza- More like the New England.
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