The Cervantino Festival invites a different country every year to honor its artists and culture. The honored country this year was the UK. Originally Belle & Sebastian were scheduled to play. For unknown reasons, they cancelled and decided to send in Aberfeldy to save the day! Sure enough, Aberfeldy came in a rocked this ancient city of Mexico along with all the hippies in it. No one really knew who they were, so they had no clue what to expect. They started off their set with "Friend Like You," and these older senior citizens were happy they weren't playing Satan rock. The crowd consisted of children, yuppies, students, government officials, and tons of hippies. The outdoor venue can hold about 7,000. For that night, since it was the closing event, it held 10,000. It could have been disastrous but thankfully wasn't.
The Scottish band was dressed in white to bring out those Arian skin tones, but the drummer was such a badass he wore his sunglasses throughout the set. That's what drummers do after all. They followed up with "Don't Know What It Means"; the xylophone used in this song was a lot of fun to dance to. The seated area stayed seated, but I couldn't resist dancing to such an indie-pop beat. I immediately got up and started dancing my pants off. This encouraged others to get up and do the "Hustle." Aberfeldy played "Surly Girl" and "Vegetarian Restaurant" off of their first album, and the songs brought back feelings of the very first time I heard Aberfeldy. This Aberfeldy love was spread like an STD through mix tapes my friend and I had made each other. This is what TMT is all about; our lives consist of mix tapes and bad jokes.
Back to Aberfeldy, they were talking about the video for their song "Hypnotized" and how they used Mexican wrestling masks. Little did they know that the masks they wore were those of some lame-ass wrestlers. The band's sound consisted of violins, banjos, keyboards, and love. Don't let the violin or banjo throw you off. The girls in this band are very talented and could play just about any instrument. I must mention their great smiles as well. They went on to play "Tom Weir." This is when the students started dancing and chanting "El que no baila es joto!" ("Whoever doesn't dance is a fag!") So immediately, that half of the crowd started dancing. The other half had already accepted their sexuality and stayed seated.
"Setting Your City On Fire" was a little more calm; this gave everyone a chance to sit down and take a breath. They finished off the 90 minute set with a cover of Devo's "It's a Beautiful World." At this point everyone got up; even the government officials were clapping along, and everyone danced. All in all, it was a great night for everyone in Guanajuato.
