La Bandalismo

I just realized that I forgot to write about one of the funnest parts of my weekend! And a part that I think Shelly and Dave would like to hear about. On Friday, I went with Marjorie, Christian, Luis and Sebastian to hear a band called La Bandalismo. They play Chilean folk music from the Andes and from the Atacama desert region in Northern Chile. We got into the concert for free, which was cool, and found some empty seats behind a couple of old ladies. The concert was in Valparaiso's municipal theater, which is an elegant old building complete with red velvet seats and red velvet curtains on stage. I had no expectations whatsoever about the concert, but I was still completely surprised when without any kind of introduction the band started playing and dozens of dancers came out on stage. They were dancing to simulate the Fiesta de San Pedro de Atacama, in which thousands of Atacameños wear outlandish clothes and masks and dance in the street for days in religious and cultural fervor. The music was loud, brassy, and incredibly fun to listen to. There were lots of drums, Andean flutes, and whistles. It was so wild and happy that it made me wonder why I ever listen to whiny American crap. The audience was going crazy and everyone left their seats to dance salsa in the aisles. The band had heard that it was a little girl in the audience's birthday, so they had her come up on stage and dance salsa to to one of the songs, which was incredibly cute. I danced salsa too, and no one laughed at me (!)

When I was looking up more information about Chilean music online I found this website. If you click on the names of the towns on the map, music from that region plays. See if it works for you guys. I thought it was pretty cool. The Valparaiso song is really famous, and beautiful, I think.