Have you ever heard of Kylie Minogue? I hadn't until she and a bunch of other bands famous in Australia showed up in Dili to perform for the INTERFET troops. I'm not even sure if that is how you spell her name. The reason I ask is that a lot of folks here were surprised that I was so ill-informed. For those of you who are as much in dark as I am, she was a big star on that most famous of Australian soaps, Neighbors. If that doesn't help you out, she later made it big as a pop star. She's like the Australian Madonna. I guess she was really big in Europe as well. My point being: folks here were really surprised when they heard she was playing a concert in Dili of all places.
Greg, being Australian and all, was so excited that he insisted we pack up shop in Los Palos and start our Christmas Holiday a few days early (Dec. 22nd), so that we could get up to Dili and check out the concert. I'm glad we did! The whole thing was as grand as it was surreal, and I love the surreal.
Greg and I took off a bit late and stopped to take pictures of a herd of buffalo wallowing in the mud. Anyway, we got into Dili about 3:00pm, somewhere around an hour or so after the event had begun. We didn't have tickets, and we were told they weren't letting any more people in anyway. So we wandered around the outside of the stadium (spelled "stadian" in Dili) and watched the hordes of people that had gathered in the street, on the tops of the surrounding buildings, and in all the trees. There was also one guy sitting at the top of a telecommunications tower waving a Bob Marley flag. Greg was very excited that the Angels were playing. Again, I had no idea who they were. On the far side of the stadium, we found a gate where a few soldiers were letting in locals in controlled bursts. Greg and I squeezed in during one of the not-so-very-controlled bursts.
Once inside, I began to realize the enormity of what I was seeing. They had shipped in an entire stage, loads of lights, an amazing sound system, two huge video screens, a bunch of aging Australian rock stars, a young starlet in a very short yellow mini skirt, and television crews for a live broadcast to the folks back home in OZ. The concert was primarily for the benefit of the Australian troops stuck in Dili for the holidays, so far away from home. But all of INTERFET were invited, NGOs were given tickets and they were letting the East Timorese flow in under some kind of system. So it was a mixed crowd. The Australians were loving it, the young ones were down in front pushed up against the stage with East Timorese children on their shoulders, and the older ones were in back tapping their feet and trying to keep their machine out of the mud. There was a group of Italians up in the stands swaying back and forth in unison. Later they tried to start a wave! A pair of Kenyan soldiers got some strange looks from the Australians as they walked through the crowd holding hands. The East Timorese, for the most part, just stared in bewildered amusement.
Then it started to rain. I've seen film clips of Woodstock and the 90's Woodstock II reenactment a few years back where it poured again and left the soaked concert goers wallowing in the mud (like buffalo). But I've never seen it rain like this at a concert. Of course it had to happen. It's the rainy season for god's sake. But hoo-boy did it come down that day. Obviously, the stage was covered, but the water coming off the canopy formed a sort of waterfall that almost completely obscured the performers. At first the umbrellas and ponchos came out, but it soon became apparent that trying to keep dry would be about as futile as walking on water. Speaking of walking on water; mud was not a problem here. There was too much water for mud. The field in the center of the stadium quickly turned into one big lake. Those who still had dry socks were crowded in clumps on the islands formed from the field's high spots. Most of the others hardly took notice and just kept on dancing.
In the end Kylie was actually dwarfed by the superior talent of the aging rockers. She sang a few Christmas carols and did a real good job of looking sexy for the troops, but little more. She did get some cheers from the crowd when she broke away from her clean cut teeny-bopper image to belt out some colorful expletives that were a big part of the refrain of a traditional Aussie chant. I had a great time, although I don't think it would have been as good on television.