Iron Maiden Costa Rica 2009

March 3rd, Day of Concert

This morning I have plans to go surfing with Odair (he’s the one who’s grandmother thinks Maiden is Satanic).  He’s supposed to call me by 9am so that we can go out while the waves are good in the morning. I wake up early and eat breakfast, expecting two phone calls and an awesome day.

After ten, Odair finally calls to suggest that we surf from eleven to one or two. I tell him to come on over but that I am still waiting to hear what time to leave for Alajuela. Immediately after, Pablo calls on a horrible connection.

I hate the telephones in Costa Rica. Dropped calls are frequent even on landlines. I can’t tell the difference between the dial tone and a busy signal. The language barrier is also more difficult because the speaker can’t see the look of confusion or total incomprehension on my face that would otherwise be a clue that I have no idea what they are talking about.

So I have three short, difficult conversations with Pablo where I surmise that I need to 1). write down the phone number he is calling me from, 2.) be in Alajuela as soon as possible, and 3.) carry with me only cash and identification, to avoid problems with pickpockets and muggings. I am not allowed to bring any kind of bag or purse, so a toothbrush or a change of underwear is out of the question.

Odair arrives just as I am leaving and gives me some mangos to add to the peanuts, bread and Gatorade I bought for the trip. I wear a black t-shirt (thanks for the gift, Black Market Halos!) and jeans with my old orange Sketchers. I have 30 mil colones in cash in one of the zipper pockets in my shoes, my keys in a front pocket, a copy of my passport in one back pocket and a list of phone numbers in the other. I call a taxi to take me to the bus station and spend a total of $6 leaving town.

Two hours later my bus stops at the airport.  I decide to just get out rather than ride to San Jose and find the Alajuela downtown stop. I am already deviating from Pablo’s instructions, so I’m a bit worried until my bus shows up. I know it’s my bus because it is full of young men in black Iron Maiden t-shirts.

I pay another 75 cents and sit next to a very uncomfortable looking businessman who probably isn’t going to the concert. It’s actually very easy to tell who’s going to work and who’s going to the concert.  The workers eye the fans nervously and appear annoyed or outright afraid, while the fans ignore them look forward excitedly.

I’m not sure when to get off the bus, but I can tell when we arrive.  We are in a neighborhood completely overrun by youths in Iron Maiden shirts.  I get off the bus when I notice most of the other fans leaving and follow the crowd to find the stadium.  Again it is easy to tell who’s local and who came into town for the show.  For the first time I see pedestrians actually recieving the right of way on Costa Rican streets.  There are just too many fans for the cars to even get through.  On the way, I buy a Maiden shirt from a street vendor for 3 mil ($6).

Finding a cheap t-shit is easy but finding a public phone to call Pablo is tough.  The crowd is mostly young men, ages 15 to 30, and many of them have already been drinking outside the stadium for hours.  The beer vendors (men carrying plastic buckets filled with ice and cans) warn that there will be no alc0hol sold inside the stadium.  I wander cautiously through groups and semi-formed lines, circling the stadium for a payphone.  Here and there chants of “Ole, ole ole ole, Mai-den, Mai-den” break out spontaneously and fade into cheers.  Lines of police in riot gear stand disinterested on street corners, gossiping to each other and ignoring the underage drinking and marijuana smoking happening all around them.

Finally, outside of a dirty bar that smells like piss, I step over a man laying on the sidewalk to use a payphone.  The phone is an older model with a slot to swipe the magnetic strip of prepaid cards.  However, there is nowhere for me to deposit a 50 colones coin.  I have no idea what happened to the prepaid card I bought for $2 last week.  I think I used about 60 cents of it before it was lost.  I dial 110 (collect call service) to call the number Pablo gave me, but a recored Spanish operater informs me that this number has 110 blocked.

I have to wander back into the crowds and search for someone who looks kind and sober enough to lend me their cellphone.  Several people turn me away with looks of disgust, as though I was begging for money.  Finally some of the younger fans help me.  I point on my list to the number I want to call, and they dial and then pass me the phone.  Each time, the call goes right to voicemail.  An hour goes by like this, pacing back and forth between good areas to bum cell phones and getting no results.

Next, I decide to approach the guards at one of the stadium entrances and ask for my friends directly.  I explain that I am looking for Pablo or Javier, and that they are both working security for the day.  I give their last name and neighborhood and someone is able to verify that they are working there, but no one knows where.  A large and impatient looking man in a bright yellow t-shirt tells me in broken english that I should just keep calling them.  I’m starting to get nervous.

I decide to continue on to the next set of doors and see if I can spot them.  I am halfway around the stadium again when someone grabs my arm.  Two of Pablo’s friends, who I met in San Jose at a birthday party last week, recognized me wandering on the street.  I guess I stand out, being a white female in a crowd lke this.  It’s lucky for me, because I could have never spotted them.

One of guys has a cellphone, so I join them in line and we continue to call and get nothing.  Next we call Esteban to see if he’s talked to his brothers.  ”Es que aqui es la guila,” they tell Esteban.  That’s me, la guila.  (Urban dictionary says this means prostitute, but here they use it as slang for muchacha in general.  Honestly, I’ve heard people here call a baby “guila”)

Esteban has not heard from his brothers and has no idea where they are working.  He says keep calling the other number.  The guys all have tickets to enter the bleacher seats.  I have nothing.  They tell me that the concert is sold out and that bleacher tickets are going for 30 mil ($60) on the street.  That is more money than I have left, and I purposely did not bring my debit card.  They laugh that Pablo thought this was a good idea.  I’m too anxious to start drinking.  All around me are drunken Iron Maiden fans getting impatient in the sun.  The line starts moving faster.

We are rapidly approaching an entrance and I am starting to panic.  The most I can do is hope they find Pablo once inside.  I’ll have to hang out by this entrance waiting for him to appear after they’ve disappeared.  I want to write down their phone number but I cannot find a pen from anyone in the crowd.  We are standing next to a set a giant metal doors which are not being utilized for this event, shoving and nudging each other in competition for the shade against the stadium wall.  Suddenly, a peep hole slot in the door opens and for absolutely no explicable reason, Javier peers out.

In a stroke of divine luck, he just happened to feel like checking out the crowd at the exact minute we were in front of this door.  We send him for Pablo, who arrives at the peep hole minutes later.  He tells me to stay in the line and he will call us shortly with instructions.

Instructions never come and at the very last checkpoint I need to have a ticket to pass through, so I panic and leave the line.  Just then I see Pablo patting down fans beyond the entrance.  He points to me and shouts at the nearest security guards, who allow me to climb back over the rail and pass through the entrance unbothered.  I am escorted around the stadium and through another set of gates into the ground level, V.I.P de pie.  This is an $80 ticket area, and I have spent a total of only $6.75 and about six hours getting here.

From this moment on, everything goes much better.  Javier has been assigned to backstage security and he has a photograph of himself with Steve Harris (He later accidentally erased this and 50+ other photos, but they were retrieved safely).

Pablo decides to maintain his post throughout the concert rather than quitar his camisa, forfeit the 15 mil, and run for the pit.  He wants to be able to say he was paid to attend this concert.  For a moment it looks like I am going into the pit alone, but then his cousin Martin shows up.

Martin got into town even later than I did, and had the same troubles reaching Pablo.  To make matters worse, it was almost dark and the crowds outside were still huge.  I got to watch as Pablo’s fellow door guard continuously lost Martin’s calls before he could answer them.  I guess Alajuela (Costa Rica?) is a shitty place for cell  phone reception.  Martin had no ticket either and wound up entering with the aid of a ticket Pablo has previously purchased for himself as a back up to the security job plan.

With Martin watching out for me (helping me fend off the more aggressive pit dancers) I’m able to get very close to the stage for the show.  While Lauren Harris was not my cup of tea, Maiden was INCREDIBLE. Here are some of the pictures Martin took on his phone from our vantage point:

And here’s some photos of the show taken by a better photographer:

After the show we reunite with Pablo, Javier, and another cousin and went out drinking.  We are impressed to find the town has not run out of beer but annoyed that the bar only has one Maiden CD, which they play on a random repeat.  Everyone buys a round and then we walk blocks and blocks uphill to Martin’s sister’s house.  There are mattresses, blankets and pillows laid out all over the tile floor.  We collapse in piles.

The next day we wake up and have breakfast with Martin’s sister and her two small daughters.  One of them calls me “gringa,” and her mother quickly corrects her to say “extranjera.”  I explain that I don’t mind the title gringa as we not in Mexico and I know everyone it’s not meant to be durrogatory.

The boys start drinking beer right away.  It is Wednesday but everyone has requested the day off.  I realize I’m not getting back to Puntarenas any time soon, and they finally talk me into tequila shots by lunch time.  We talk about the concert all day and there were already videos on Youtube by the time I get home late that night.