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3/11/1999 - Santos
The Incident in Santos, Brazil
By: delirium- | 06/09/2009 at 02:59
By Greg Graffin

It was March, 1999. It was a remote Jungle redoubt in the hills overlooking Santos, Brazil. It was doing what it's supposed to do in the rainforest, pouring buckets. Bad Religion was scheduled to play at 10pm. We arrived at the place early, for soundcheck. It was still light outside and we could see that the venue was probably the most interesting one we have ever been to. It was an outdoor nightclub with a tent-roofed stage, a tent-roofed mixing platform, and a large open-air dance area.
All of this was carved out of a remnant patch of Atlantic Rainforest, that could only be reached by a twisty two-lane road that quickly became jammed with Brazilian Punks who were both eager and frustrated from the traffic.

There was an interesting parallel fabric formed by the wild Punks and the wild forest that sheltered us that evening. But at this early hour, inside the venue, there was just the quiet hum of the amps, and the drooping forest surrounding us. No clouds, no rain.
Soundcheck came off without a hitch, and we took a few minutes to survey the outskirts of the venue. On one end of the dance/forest floor there was a bar without cover. Behind it was a panoramic view of the city below us.

This precipice dropped straight down about 1000 feet until it broke into a slope of tree-canopy that led down to the city itself. I remember thinking that If it weren't for the fence there, it might become a crowd-surfers point-of-no- return.

The rain began without warning. Not one instrument had been played, the first band didn't even take the stage yet. We were in our backstage mini-hut enjoying our caiparina when a thunderous flamming ping pong sound descended from the heavens and collided with our roof. It continued without pause. First it seemed like a normal storm to the locals. Then, after about an hour, they started to look a bit nervous. We have played shows all over the world, and some of them have been very sketchy. If there is one thing we have learned it is this: If the locals start to look worried, things might quickly turn sour. The show soon lapsed to two hours behind schedule, and the audience knew some bad shit might come of this. Things turned from bad to worse when the power went out. Now in some places when the power goes out it comes back on within a few minutes. But Brazil is famous for power outages that can last a few days.

We weren't sure how extensive the power outage was when we lost our lights backstage and onstage. We knew the audience lost power because the recorded music we were playing went off too. When we ventured over behind the bar to view our panorama, we arrived just in time to see one city block after another blinking and then shutting down completely. After about five minutes, the entire city was black, and the audience was now officially pissed off.

At this time the promoter came to us and said "we better get out of here, the fans are pissed, they will surely kill you". Why us? We thought about playing an acoustic set, but realized the audience would just hear the thunderous boom of Bobby's drums because the guitars had no power. The 4000 fans were all whistling and chanting by this time, as we drove off down the mountainside into the dark abyss of black-out Santos. We got back to our hotel and the promoter told us he would go back and try to sort out the situation at the venue.

We assumed this meant giving refunds to all the people who were there. But later we found out that refunds are not generally given for weather-related problems. Instead, he went back to think of something to save the show. We got ready for bed. By this time it was Midnight and the storm had passed. The power was still out, so it was by candlelight and cellular phone that we got the call around 1am: "you must return to the venue at once, we have power".

The ride back up the hill was chaos. No street lights, no traffic lights, people scrambling everywhere, looters in the streets, Punks coming down off the mountain, disgruntled, only to turn around when they heard by word of mouth that the show would go on. The traffic jam was a cacophony of third world motors and bad exhaust. We were gridlocked, so we hiked about a mile on our own to get back to the venue where we were greeted by rapt disbelief as we entered the venue through the turnstiles.

It was now 2am and the venue was still packed. We played an entire set and we had the time of our lives. The chaos, enthusiasm, emotion swings, and rainforest all conspired that night to offer us an incredible experience.

Thanks to all the people who stuck around for that show. We won't soon forget it.

Epilogue: It turned out to be one of the most wide-spread blackouts in recent times. The entire state of Sao Paulo was blacked out as well. This left some 68 million people without power for 24 hours.
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3/11/1999 - Santos - poster