A full 4th of July for B'ESTFEST 2009 in Bucharest. The Ting Tings showed just what a band needs to do during an economic crisis, The Charlatans played in Romania for the second time and legendary Carlos Santana brought 20,000 people together at Romexpo. For over two hours' time, Santana performed and talked about compassion, forgiveness, love, fear and George Bush. The same day saw bands like Persona, Gravity CO., Looptroop Rockers and The MOOod on the stage.

The perfect music couple must be The Ting Tings. Katie and Jules showed on the 4th of July that bands with a reduced number of members do very well in economic crisis. Considered to be the revelation of the year, The Ting Tings performed in Bucharest songs from their debut album, We Started Nothing.

We hear their "one request - to dance", Katie and Jules manage to do what otherwise a five-members band would need to do. While Jules takes care of the rhythm with the help of a "drum", Katie plays the guitar, piano, vocal and beats a drum for several dozens of seconds. They put on We Started Nothing, Shut Up And Let Me Go and That's Not My Name. They mentioned Michael Jackson and, stole the audience's soul by photographing it (some tribes believe that the soul is stolen by the camera).

We are ten served musical "swindles", because The Charlatans take the stage. Also British but much more numerous, with a less energetic than Katie front man, Tim Burgess & Co perform You Cross My Path, Tellin' Stories, Oh Vanity, The Only One I Know, Forever, Blackened Blue Eyes.

Their performances impressed Mick Jagger and band: The Rolling Stones featured in the opening of their 2007 concert in Bucharest the band as the opening act. But the Romanians were not easily impressed: even though "It's good to be here for the second time" and despite their great songs, the band were often too still and failed to reach a very large public that kept thinking on the band that followed.

A lady in the crowed shows us a notebook with pictures of famous band. She looks for Carlos Santa, while she browses pages with Beatles, Phoenix and Elton John. We notice she also has a very well preserved ticket from Michael Jackson's concert in Bucharest from 1996.

Shaman Santana is next to pt a spell on the audience. Like no other B'ESTFEST, majority of the public has lived their first youth. "God is dead", a Nietzsche fan tries to tell the crowd with the message on his T-shirt. He's so wrong, considering the guitar god is still alive. Carlos Santa managed to take the role from Jimi Hendrix and brought the proof to Romania.

Santana opens the stage energetically, with Soul Sacrifice, playing an instrument he used at Woodstock 40 years ago. The back screen shows images from 1969. The foreground sees Tony Lindsay and Andy Vargas taking care of the show, while Santana takes care of every guitar and note he plays.

We're then offered songs like Into The Night("Like a gift from the heavens, it was easy to tell/ It was love from above that could save me from hell"), Vive la Vida(Life Is For Living). But what gets to the public the most are virtuoso songs. "You are all about to get down to the sound of Carlos Santana!" Tony Lindsay tells the audience, and we hear Maria, Maria and Samba Pa Ti. A mother starts dancing wioth her son and the audience is just delighted by god Santana preaching music.

Santana avoids eye contact with the crowd, keeping its focus on the guitar. It is not the man that counts, it's his music. Carlos Santana invites the audience to "guitar surf" and "soul fly". It is a mass hypnosis. Almost nobody sees that, at the right of the scenery, the American 4th of July is fire-worked.

After Evil Ways and She's Not There, Carlos Santana holds a speech before playing A Love Supreme: "Hi, everybody! This is a beautiful, beautiful evening. Beautiful people, beautiful country. Think I'll say a few words from my heart. We, like Bob Marley, John Lennon, Marvin Gaye, Jimi Hendrix... one love... we want to heal the planet, we want to heal our mind. The only way to heal ourselves is to recognise there's only two things on this planet. Two things on this planet: love and fear. Love is ourselves. Fear... shhh! Fear is very expensive. If you wanna know how expensive fear is, ask George Bush, he knows that. F*** George Bush!"

The 20,000 people cheer. He goes on: "We want you to know the world is round, so we can all be in the centre stage. God created a circle of love and light for man. The message from Santana is: kindness, compassion, forgiveness, one love... one love… peace!"

Then we hear Black Magic Woman, drums solo, Corazon Espinado and Jingo. In the end, his son, Salvador Santa, shows his skills. The fans are "santanised".