Def Con Dos
The Auditorio del Parque de la Huerta in Albatera had already taken a serious battering by the time Def Con Dos marched onto the BrevaRock stage, but whatever remained of the place's structural dignity was about to be thoroughly tested. With Jódete, Error de Visión, Desklate, Afónica Naranjo and Catalina Grande Piñón Pequeño having already worked their way through the afternoon and early evening, the crowd was warmed up, lubricated and more than ready. And waiting afterwards were El Último Ke Zierre, Kaos Urbano and Laura DSK, meaning there was absolutely no excuse for anyone to be thinking about going home.
Then came Def Con Dos, and the temperature went through the fucking roof. There is something gloriously unhinged about watching this band in full flight. Punk, hip-hop, metal, satire, attitude and several decades of accumulated mischief are thrown into the same industrial blender, and somehow the result still comes out sounding like Def Con Dos. They don't stroll onto a festival stage and perform a set; they attack it. And what an attack this was!
Twenty songs. Non-stop. No leisurely pauses for everyone to check their phones, contemplate the meaning of life or discuss whether the next song might be a bit quieter. From “Poco Pan” through “Pánico”, “Ultramedia” and “Heterosexual”, the band maintained a ridiculous pace that barely gave the audience time to draw breath. It was one of those sets where the gap between one song and the next becomes irrelevant because the whole thing starts behaving like a single enormous piece of musical machinery.
The crowd absolutely lost its shit for “Alzheimer”. The song has been rattling around Spanish alternative culture for decades, but hearing thousands of people hammering the words back at the stage at BrevaRock gave it another life entirely. Bodies bounced, people danced, the pit opened up and the atmosphere shifted from festival crowd to collective lunacy.
And the good vibes weren't restricted to the audience. BrevaRock's hospitality deserves a serious mention, with the hosts making the whole operation feel welcoming rather than corporate, while the staff and security were friendly, approachable and clearly part of the atmosphere rather than there simply to police it. That's important at a festival where the audience is going to dance, mosh and generally behave like they've just been released from several months of administrative detention.
Then came “A.M.V.”, and Mara Gilbert produced one of the night's great visual moments, bringing out the A.M.V. flag as the song hit. It was one of those beautifully simple gestures that immediately connects the people on stage with the people standing in front of it.
And then César Strawberry decided that normal stagewear wasn't going to cut it for “El Día De La Bestia”. Out came the crazy mask, and suddenly the frontman looked less like a musician and more like some particularly angry character who had escaped from the wrong side of a Spanish horror comic. Perfectly appropriate, really.
The chemistry inside the band was ridiculous. César, Mara, Samuel Barranco, J. Al Ándalus, Alberto Marín and Kiki Tornado attacked the material with the kind of precision that only comes from musicians who have spent a lot of time playing this stuff together. Kiki's drums drove the whole thing forward like a runaway train, Alberto's guitar work supplied the metallic shrapnel and the vocal front line bounced between rap, punk fury and theatrical menace.
And just when everyone thought they might finally get a breather, “Armas” arrived to close the set. It was the perfect final punch. The crowd were already cooked, the band were still going like they'd just been plugged into the national grid, and when the final notes disappeared into the night, the response was immediate: fans wanted more. Of course they did!
Twenty songs had just been fired at them at approximately the speed of an out-of-control shopping trolley, and somehow it still felt like the set had finished too soon.
That's the trick with Def Con Dos. They don't simply play the songs you came to hear. They turn them into a shared physical experience — something involving sweat, shouting, dancing, flying limbs, ridiculous masks, flags, beer, memories and the occasional suspicion that the mosh pit may have developed its own weather system.
BrevaRock gave them the Auditorio del Parque de la Huerta. The crowd supplied the madness. Def Con Dos supplied the ammunition. Twenty songs later, nobody was asking for subtlety. They were asking for another fucking twenty!
Words and photos: Rhyan Paul
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