For the first time in its 37-year history, Rock in Rio, the largest music festival in Latin America, was held in the middle of the electoral campaign.
With Brazil divided between supporters of Lula and Bolsonaro, the organization feared the politicization of the event, to the point that days before it warned that it would not allow candidates to go on stage and warned artists and sponsors that they had to comply with the election law.
The fears were not confirmed.
The festival, attended by more than 700,000 people in seven days, was a refuge for escape where music was the main protagonist.
The big international names of the cartel ignored the climate of tension that Brazil is beginning to take on, and most of the attendees were grateful: “We see things heating up more and more, the spirits rising a lot, so I think this is a fun moment, I don't think this is the best time to politicize.
But any demonstration is valid, I'm not going to criticize it,” said Junior Souza, a public official from Brasilia who was crazy about immersing himself in the Dua Lipa concert on Sunday night.
Shortly before the British singer took the stage, Brazilian Ivete Sangalo did make a subtle but long-awaited political statement.
After criticizing weapons and making a speech in favor of diversity and freedom, he proclaimed: "A new time is coming (...) on the 2nd (October, date of the first round) we are going to change everything!" .
It was no small thing for an artist who, despite being one of the most beloved in the country, has been criticized for a few years for not positioning herself politically.
In fact, it was one of the few speeches of a political nature, the rest were more or less subliminal messages: Ludmila, in an applauded concert in which she claimed the title of 'queen of the favela', had time to rescue the national team's jersey Brazilian, which in recent years was appropriated by the right, and asked the public to "make the ele", the hand gesture with which they declare support for Lula.
Aside from that, and from the words of more critical artists such as rappers Emicida and Racionais, the politicization of the festival remained in the songs 'Fora Bolsonaro' or 'Lula, Lula', already expected in the great concentrations of pop or MPB ( Brazilian Popular Music).
The festival will be remembered for concerts such as Coldplay's, which despite the nuisance of the rain formed a sea of colored lights distributing LED bracelets to its legion of fans, or Green Day's, which were among the best on offer poster pop rock.
The almost messianic appearance of Justin Bieber was also widely celebrated, after intense rumors that he was going to cancel the concert.
Others were somewhat lackluster: Axl Rose came to apologize for the improvable presentation of Guns N' Roses and Avril Lavigne had sound problems.
For many of the attendees, that hardly mattered.
The festival, which occupies the gigantic grounds of Rio's Olympic Park, is also a great amusement park in which it sometimes seems that the concerts are just the background, a background music.
A zip line in front of the main stage, a Ferris wheel and roller coaster, an entire pavilion for video game lovers and another with a Broadway-style musical about the Amazon are just some of the hundreds of extra stimuli.
The sponsors of the event have their own stands, where young people like Stephanie Quintanilla had no problem waiting up to an hour and a half in line to take a photo in an 'Instagramable space' or receive a moisturizing cream as a gift.
“I have missed several concerts, you have to know how to manage it.
But that's what I like about here,
you mix concerts and experiences.
The little gifts are the icing on the cake”, said the young woman delighted.
The festival, designed for all audiences and with an exquisite organization considering its colossal size, is very aspirational, and key elements in other festivals, such as alcohol, for example, are something very secondary.
"There is no drink, there is nothing but beer," Natalia Reis and her group of friends lamented.
Not a trace of the iconic caipirinha.
Another song is what happens inside the huge VIP area, with capacity for almost 3,000 people and tickets at 2,800 reais (540 euros) per night, which is a little more than the average salary in Brazil.
Even so, the demand for access to this privileged space is such that there are several VIP rooms within the main VIP, with different degrees of exclusivity.
Although the common mortals can enter the festival with food, inside the enclosure there were people willing to pay 55 reais (almost 11 euros) for a bowl of popcorn.
There are not a few who go into debt or pay in installments, something very common in Brazil, in order to live the experience.
The city of Rio appreciates it.
According to a study by the Getúlio Vargas Foundation, the festival generates 28,000 direct jobs and represents an injection of 1,700 million reais (almost 330 million euros) into the local economy.