Picture this, you’re with your friends getting ready to go to one of the best concerts of the year. Then you’re in the stadium, the excitement is vibrating off the air. You get to your seats, and you have a perfect view of the stage. That is of course if you’re nowhere near the lower bowl, because if you are, you will basically only see poles and people watching the concert you so badly wanted to see. 

On April 22, 2023, in the stadium Atanasio Girardot the Los Favoritos concert took place. Headlined by multiple artists, those expected to make an appearance were; Arcangel, De La Ghetto, Justin Quiles, Lenny Tavarez, Kapla y Miky, Fainal y Shako, and Brokix, to perform in an incredible event hosted by Elite Group. 

5:00 pm

Once you get over the fact that you have the crappiest seats ever, you start to buy food and drinks to prepare for the night. Since it’s 5pm, and you’re hungry, you get some food and spend almost half of your money, but it’s okay because you’ll be having too much fun later to even think of going to buy more stuff. 

At this point you realize there’s some chick performing on the stage literally no one is paying attention to, so you and your friends start to joke about how no one knows who this opener is, and she’s singing to an inattentive crowd. You feel bad, but it is the organizer’s fault for having the opening act perform at the exact time the doors were opening and people were beginning to walk in.

5:45 pm

Once the opener leaves, the wait until the next artist is about 40 minutes long. Even though there was some good music playing, there was a glitch on the big screen where the entire stadium could see the computer that was controlling it, and for a split second, the Spotify playlist they were picking the songs out of. 

7:30 pm 

At a little past 7:30 the first artist from the round up, BrokiX, begins their performance. BrokiX is a musical group that focuses on a mix of trap reggaeton and rock music. Even though their visuals were excellent, specifically the videos on the screens, it was too dark for most of the attendees. Their music was also way too rock oriented which made it repetitive and boring which made them an unpleasant act to watch. Additionally, most people thought they were openers as well.

After they were done, there was about a 30-minute intermission where DJ Carlos was introduced, he played some popular songs and people took this interval to get their beverages and all of their stuff together. The following artists opened their performance with a beautifully curated video introducing them, featuring a handful of the most recognized artists from Medellín, including Karol G, Maluma, and others, which hyped the crowd up a lot. Fainal y Shako had an excellent performance. Not only did they feature lyrics to their less popular songs, the crowd really enjoyed the performance and sang along. 

They were followed by another 40 minute intermission by none other than DJ Carlos. Then Kapla y Miky had their performance, which was good, but had no special highlights. Then there was almost an hour of, you guessed it, DJ Carlos. Lenny Tavárez then showed up and relieved the audience of what everyone thought was the longest DJ set in history. Tavárez had an excellent performance, the crowd loved him, and he had an incredible dynamic on the stage. His was one of the longest performances of the night, and almost everyone was singing along and enjoying his set.

11:30 pm

After another long hour of DJ Carlos, Justin Quiles interrupted him to perform his set. His set was amazing, he used a lot of lighting effects and pyrotechnics which really added to the excitement of the performance. He was very interactive with the audience and connected really well with everyone, even those high up in the nosebleeds. He sang a lot of his popular songs, so almost everyone was singing with him, and he chose upbeat songs which helped maintain the energy through the whole thing. By 12:10am he took out the very first surprise artist of the night; Blessd. The crowd went wild when he came out and everyone screamed along to the lyrics of “Una Noche en Medellín” which was the only song Blessd performed before leaving the stage. Quiles then went on to sing until 12:35am, when his set was finalized. 

12:35 am 

You remember that thing about seconds feeling like hours and the time slowing down? That’s how the next 2 hours felt. DJ Carlos took the stage once again, at this point he was running out of songs to play, so he began replaying those he did at the very beginning. 

People were so bored and over the set that the producers took out the representatives of Aguardiente Antioqueño and Baru Seltzers to perform some promo for their products. First came the Baru guys and they sang the promo song. Then the Aguardiente guys, and after singing their “Guaro guaro guaro” promo number, they just started singing the songs the DJ was playing as if though they were performing artists. That bit was actually pretty comical, a lot of people were just shocked that not only they were actually performing, but that the stage crew were giving them a light show for their performance.

This only lasted around 15 minutes and back at it was DJ Carlos. Again the producers realized how annoyed the audience was at this, so they switched the DJs for a moment. At 1am-ish they brought to the stage another DJ, and even though the audience groaned at the fact that they had to sit through another crappy DJ set, DJ Marco Acevedo was actually excellent. He started out slow and then started playing full-blown Techno, which pumped the audience up, once again. But it was as if though the producers didn’t like seeing the audience enjoying themselves, because after 20 minutes they ended his set. When the presenter went to bid DJ Marco Acevedo goodbye, and introduce the next act, he asked the audience how they were feeling. Not surprisingly, the response was not very good, even though people thought that the next performer was coming in. Spoiler alert, he wasn’t. Instead, the audience got to sit through yet another hour of DJ Carlos.