WARCRY
Teatro Metropol - Bogotá, Colombia
October 5 2013

There have been quite a few adventures and misadventures during Warcry's 2013 Omega Tour in Colombia, and tonight, Warcry's concert in Bogotá was cancelled at the very last minute...

In august 2013 Warcry was scheduled to play 4 shows in Colombia, in the cities of Bogotá, Medellín, Bucaramanga and Cali.
Due to a national strike that hit the country during those days, the tour was postponed to October, but only 2 shows were scheduled, Bogotá and Medellín, the others were cancelled probably due to ticket sales.

In order to sell more tickets many efforts were made during the weeks prior to the remaining shows, including discounted tickets through some selected outlets. The efforts paid and the concert was sold out!

Finally, the day of the show came and everything was going smoothly as expected. More than 2000 people were queuing peacefully outside Teatro Metropol.
Some lucky 150 fans even got inside early and had kind of a private show, as they could see Warcry performing two songs during the soundcheck, Alma de Conquistador and Perdido.

Then the police came, and prevented more people from getting in. It appears that the operating license of Teatro Metropol expired a while ago, but somehow shows like Avantasia or Destruction / Exumer could be held. The barefaced owner of the theater never told any concert promoter about this, so this was a surprise to (almost) everyone.

The authorities found out about Warcry's show and the shut down the place, sealing the doors with signs that read “sellamiento”. Inside, the organizers and the police were negotiating on how to maintain the concert.
During this time, more than 2000 people were still queuing outside while singing Hoy Gano Yo and other Warcry songs.

Finally, a spokesman of the police came out and announced that the concert was cancelled. The people outside began to scream of disappointment but there was not a single violent reaction.

Nevertheless, a full squadron of the ESMAD, the Anti-Riot special forces, was ready for intervention. They arrived as soon as the announcement of the cancellation was made and started to attack the people in order to disperse them.
They clearly overreacted, shooting 4 tear gas grenades and attacked some fans with a Taser gun.
The only violent people here tonight were the shameless police forces.

As everyone, I felt angry and disappointed.
Hopefully the band Broken Zip was playing at the Hard Rock Café, so we went to their show and still could spend a rock'n'roll night.

The next day, while Warcry performed the show in Medellín, the promoters announced that the band will play in Bogotá the following day, at the Royal Center Theater!
That was a very fast and professional move from both, the organizers and the band.

This story gives at least 3 lessons:
1- Some shameless people are ready to do everything in order to make money, even irresponsibly renting a theater for a 2000+ people event without an operating license.
2- The good guys might not be the ones you think: the police were clearly the bad guys tonight, while the “dangerous” long-haired Metalheads wearing black shirts were as peaceful as one can be.
3 – There will always be professional people around, ready to find a solution and make things right, no matter how hard it seems! Thumbs up for Warcry and Productores Colombia!

Read the live report from the postponed Warcry show in Bogotá.

Share on Facebook
Tweet this!
Bookmark on Google
e-mail to a friend
Windows Live Digg Yahoo technorati

Setlist Warcry – Soudcheck at Teatro Metropol – Bogotá, – October 5 2013

Warcry Links:

Warcry band Line-up: