A night of rock in the 'favela'

Sunday was a great day for Marco and Adriano, two residents of the Cidade de Deus (City of God) favela, located just west of Rio de Janeiro.

It wasn't just because their team Flamengo had won 2-1, as Marco explained while he pounded on the emblem of his favorite soccer club on his chest. It was also because he and his friend, wearing a black Terminator t-shirt, were going to see their favorite group, Metallica, which was performing in the heart of their neighborhood.

An estimated 100,000 people attended Metallica's performance, the closing act during the first weekend of the return of Rock in Rio - the world's largest outdoor music concert festival - to the Brazilian city where it was born in 1985. It has been held in many other parts of the world, including Madrid.

"Simply put, if this area had not been pacified, we would not be here today"

Last year, Obama became the first American president to visit City of God

It was a strikingly odd scene to see the narrow streets of the favela - the residents here prefer to call it "a community" - when the string of trailers belonging to the world's biggest heavy metal band made its entrance. Luckily, a television signal was able to broadcast this event from the middle of this massive conglomeration of makeshift homes and buildings.

The origins of Cidade de Deus date back to the 1960s, when the dream of relocating thousands of people in the hills south of the city after a harsh series of floods in Rio de Janeiro turned into an urban nightmare. Half a million people live in Cidade de Deus and, while they have had an unfortunate violent past, they have a lot of hope for the future.

The festival's main concerts were broadcast on giant screens set up in the square of Caraté, located in the center of life in Cidade de Deus, thanks to an agreement between Rock in Rio founder Roberto Medina, the United Favelas Central (CUFA), the Rio police department and an endless array of sponsors, whose logos were plastered all around the area.

Before sunset and the performance of the metal groups during day three of Rock in Rio, the community showed visitors how they spend a routine Sunday afternoon. Vendors sold beer at prices three times lower than what they cost at the Barra da Tijuca, the nearby festival site. Guys riding bikes that have been saved from the scrap heap and re-equipped a thousand times over tried to impress the girls. A group of kids chased after a deflated soccer ball, just like in the opening scene of the 2002 international hit film by director Fernando Meirelles, City of God.

However, unlike one of the actors in that story - told with surreal and violent scenes of social decay through the decades - the children no longer fear the armed men who once dominated the community. In 2009 the favela was "pacified" - or in other words, the state took away the de facto power that the narcos held over the lives of residents.

The shiny building located in the plaza is a reminder to everyone of American President Barack Obama's historic visit to the favela last year.

Near the cars parked at the gates of the so-called police peacekeeping unit, officers watch how the evening unfolds smoothly, beginning with a concert by Cidade Negra, one of the most beloved reggae groups in the country. Band leader Toni Garrido, who was raised in a favela in the north of Rio called Baixa Fluminense, spoke eloquently at the end of the show: "We are helping the kind of people we all were yesterday by dreaming of a Brazil for the future."

On this voyage into the future, accelerated by the need to prepare the city to meet the requirements of the World Cup (2014) and Olympic (2016) organizations, a battle is being waged over Rio's image.

When this maze of half-finished homes fell under the government's control, a symbol of the old, chaotic Rio was also demolished.

"It was the demonstration of power of the extreme violence caused by drug trafficking that had gripped the city for decades," says Elaine, a CUFA worker. She notes that former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's objectives achieved in his fight against hunger should also be applied when it comes to providing an education for many of the residents.

"Simply put, if this area was not pacified, we would not be here today," says Tita Tepedino, responsible for the Rock in Rio broadcast, shortly before the transmission from the "City of Rock" brought the sounds of groups such as Motörhead, Slipknot and Metallica to the residents of the favela, who in most cases did not have the money to pay the 145 reales entrance fee (around 60 euros).

The plaza, which filled up with an estimated 2,000 people on each concert day, was a vivid image of culture shock on Sunday. The vibrant local music here is a shaking rhythm called favela funk, a style popularized internationally by artists such as Diplo or M.I.A. With lyrics that promote the obsessive celebration of common diversions to enable one to forget about the realities of poverty and misery, this type of music is ethically and aesthetically the antithesis of heavy metal. Unlike the millionaire composers of the bands that appeared on the third day of Rock in Rio, the people here see no other way to highlight their woes.