Four days of stereo picnic | Exchange Colombia

By Manolo Bellón
In the middle of the week that is ending, the cast of artists who will be part of the Festival Estéreo Picnic in March of next year was announced. Almost immediately my gaze was fixed on a name, among the long list of greats, the little known and the Colombian quota, I saw an admired American rock group led by blonde Debby Harry, Blondie! Here for us, a platonic love.
It is that in the midst of the media madness with the concerts, past, present and future, with comments of all colors, smells and tastes on all aspects of the different events, on different stages and in different cities, the announcement of the cast, elegantly called line upfrom the next Estéreo Picnic, is always news that receives a lot of publicity.
The twelfth edition confirms it as the most important of these festivals of more than one day that takes place in Colombia and that it is on a par with the great festivals of the region.
However, the first episode was a much more modest one-day event that took place in April 2010, with the idea of ​​emulating the big festivals such as Glastonbury, Lollapalloza or Rock in Rio. Its first edition was held in April 2010 and was a one-day concert. On that occasion they basically performed with Colombian artists on the stage of Parque Simón Bolívar. With varied styles, Bomba Estéreo, The Hall Effect, Superlitio and some international ones were on stage, notably the rocker, rapper Matisyahu, the Belgian electronic disc jockeys 2manydjs and the interesting electronic project Mexican Institute of Sound.
Despite everything, only about 3,000 people attended.
It was only in 2013 that the organizing partners turned an event that seemed doomed to fail when they brought in the American rock group The Killers, who a few years earlier had attracted 10,000 fans at their first concert in Bogotá. to this group the English New Order, the Mexican Café Tacuba, the American DJ Steve Aoki joined now yes, a two-day festival at the Sports Park on 222nd Street. The success ensured the survival of the festival concept and more than 20,000 people attended on the dates of April 5 and 7.
From then on the matter grew, reaching the attendance of more than 60,000 people in the three days that the festival covered, and in this 2023 edition it will be four days.
From its modest origins 13 years ago, in recent years great names of contemporary music have paraded, with artists on the rise, Colombian quota and a wide variety of genres. Take a quick look at this list: Nine Inch Nails, Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Wailers, Natalia Lafourcade, Julian Casablancas, Jack White, Kings of Leon, Andres Calamaro, Velvety, Puerto CandelariaMumford and Sons, Tame Impala, Florence and the Machine, Snoop Dogg, 1280 Souls, The Weeknd, The StrokesRawayana, Totó la Momposina, Lana del Rey, Gorillaz, Diamante Eléctrico, The 1975 and a long etcetera of musicians and artists.
In 2020 the cast of artists was announced and that this time it would be held at the Briceño golf course, north of Bogotá and the gateway to the municipality of Sopó, where the train station was. Of course, this one like the next one in 2021 were canceled due to pandemic issues.