More than 80 Latin American music artists were packed into the one-day Bésame Mucho festival on Saturday, attracting fans from across the country to Circuit of the Americas in Austin.
The artists represented a broad range of genres in Spanish, offering something for everyone — and, for some attendees, an overwhelming abundance of options.
Performers frequently remarked on the significance of the festival’s all-Latin American theme. Duelo frontman Oscar Iván Treviño proudly referred to his audience as “la raza.” Sin Bandera singer Noel Schajris, referencing the festival’s name, told his crowd, “Quisiera besarlos a todos ustedes” — I would like to kiss all of you.
Multiple thousand people appeared to be in attendance, though the festival could not give an estimate of attendees on Saturday. The first round of tickets sold out in 30 minutes, said Mirna Solórzano, a public relations official working with Bésame Mucho.
Though the festival is young — Saturday was its debut in Austin, and the festival marked its second iteration in Los Angeles, where it originated, in December — the event mostly appeared to run like a well-oiled machine. The first acts of the day started performing at 11 a.m. on the dot, and the tight schedule of back-to-back performances continued with few hitches. In most cases, as an artist finished their set, the stage rotated to reveal the next act, ready to perform.
The biggest snag of the day came as the festival ended. A several-hour delay kept cars from leaving COTA’s lots. The line to take a bus to the lots stretched for more than a quarter mile and moved slowly. Criteria Entertainment, the public relations firm representing the festival, did not immediately respond to questions on Sunday about the festival’s handling of parking and traffic.
Here are nine things that happened at the show.
1. A revivalist cultural spectacle to start things off with Los Askis
Kicking off the Las Clásicas stage: Mexicanos a la peruana. Cumbia tropical group Los Askis appeared equipped with Andean pipes and rectangular tunics with flamboyant sequins. The few hundreds who rushed from the entrance to the opposite side of the venue experienced the spectacle of Mexican Andean music.
A piper wore a durag. A vocalist dressed in a revivalist “Aztec” headdress with a plastic crocodile head. There was a young, thin dancer in gold the stage who the camera kept focusing on.
Los Askis reached their peak of fame in the ’90s. But the fans knew enough. Besides, a cumbia rhythm is a cumbia rhythm. People started their solo steps. The group’s hit “Vienes y Te Vas” (You come and you go) got some of the day’s first sing-alongs. But that was that. In 25 minutes, vinieron y se fueron.
— E.T.G´
2. The last of the earthlings
For many decades, there were the Los Terrícolas (The Earthlings), the multi-hit balladeers out of Venezuela. On Saturday, there was “the Terrícola,” as a reverberating, bass-heavy introduction announced several times. Nestor Daniel Hoyer, the group’s lead singer, appeared in a fine white overcoat with a female counter-vocalist — to add the group’s signature backing vocals — but without a backing band. The speakers blared.
“This was the best stuff during my time. When I was 15,” 74-year-old attendee María Cruz said in Spanish. Cruz now lives in Austin but grew up in the Mexican state of Guanajuato.
“We’ll dance. Even if it’s with our eyes, we’ll dance,” she said as the introduction played.
On earth, there is a beautiful song called “Llorarás.” Hoyer started into it.
Cruz and her husband, Medardo Uvilla, 78, embraced into a slow shuffle dance.
— E.T.G´
3. Sin Bandera revels in the romance songs that made them stars
The pop duo of Sin Bandera hewed to their reputation for romance. Almost every song in their set consisted of their beloved, decades-old pop ballads about the peak of love or heartbreak. The performance opened almost unceremoniously — singer Leonel García picked at an acoustic guitar, striking random notes as if warming up, only to sing the iconic opening lyrics of the 2003 single “Mientes Tan Bien.” Fans immediately joined in. As the set went on, even men unabashedly sang along to the love songs.
The weighty emotion of the songs contrasted with the clear sense that the singers, especially Noel Schajris, were having fun on stage. Introducing “Suelta Mi Mano,” a song about the disintegration of a relationship, Schajris joked that the upcoming song was so sad that he didn’t know whether to sing it. During the most upbeat song of the set, Sin Bandera’s early hit “Sirena,” he descended to the crowd, jogging along barricades to slap fans’ hands and dance with them. At about 45 minutes, Sin Bandera’s set was one of the longest of the day, but the fans wouldn’t have minded more. After Schajris announced that the group would perform 10 to 12 songs, a couple of fans shouted in Spanish, “Twenty!” “Thirty!”
— V.C.
4. Bobby Pulido, Duelo deliver with Tejano and norteño hits
Tejano star Bobby Pulido packed a punch that belied the brevity of his 22-minute set. In the moments when his set began, the gravity of his stardom became evident by fans’ excitement at the sound of his voice before he was visible on the rotating stage. He performed with ease, while looking like he could fit in at family carne asada gatherings with the rest of the Mexican dads — dressed in a tan button-down, brown jacket, cowboy hat and boots. The highlight of the performance was the wistful 1995 smash “Desvelado,” almost half of which Pulido sang a capella.
Duelo proved to be one of the most anticipated acts of the day — fans audibly sang along to every song in the norteño band’s almost-40-minute set. At the back of the crowd, where fans were less tightly packed, partners danced to the infectious beat. A standout was “Un Minuto Más,” which frontman Oscar Iván Treviño said was one of the band’s first major hits in the U.S. In a departure from the other tracks, Treviño’s vocals were accompanied by a stripped-back band, with only the occasional hushed haze of an accordion and strums of a guitar.
— V.C.
5. Aleks Syntek shouts out his native Mexico
In a career that has spanned more than 30 years, Aleks Syntek’s sound has ranged from moody rock to funk-tinged pop. Consistent sound issues during his Bésame set — at times, the volume of his voice was so low that he was drowned out by a background singer — did not prevent the crowd from connecting with his pop-rock ballads, some dating to the ’90s: “Sexo, Pudor y Lágrimas,” “Intocable.” Inciting the crowd’s biggest reaction was “Duele el Amor.” Another crowd-pleaser was opener “Tú Necesitas,” instantly recognizable by its drums and bass line punctuated by the squeal of an electric guitar. Syntek proudly shouted out his native Mexico and reminded the audience of Latin America’s global reach, saying in Spanish, “Austin, remember that Latinoamerica is here.” After his performance ended, Syntek brought out a Mexican flag, handed it to a fan in the front row and took a selfie with him.
— V.C.
6. Banda Machos proves duster jackets (and quebradita) can work under the Texas sun
It was duster jacket masculinity on full display. Banda Machos, perhaps the most significant exponent of Jalisco’s quebradita-style banda music, rotated onto the Beso stage in a dark green and neon frazzle variation of their signature costume. Leather, under the 2 o’clock sun.
The horns began their barrage, and the singers their grunts: “Hooy, hooy, hooy.”
They went through “La Culebra” and “El Gato y el Ratón.”
You can dance quebradita with a partner and you can swing your hips nice and fast. You can also do the signature knee pumps and kicks that Banda Macho synchronizes with ease. Or, spin a cowboy hat on an index finger like you might orbit a basketball.
Alex Pedroza, 45, took his partner’s hat and spun it as he kicked his legs out and corked them back in. His partner, Rocío Álvarez, 44, spun in circles.
“The singer’s our neighbor!” yelled Álvarez, ecstatically.
“From Villa Corona, Jalisco!” Pedroza added. The two currently live in Atlanta and traveled to Austin for Bésame. The couple spoke in Spanish.
We’ve been “dancing this since the ’90s,” she said.
“Since we were kids,” her partner added.
— E.T.G´
7. Molotov tries shock therapy
At execution, a good rock-metal group can puncture the escapist flow of festival life. It can nod (at least vaguely) at absurdity. It can break from the easy “let me hear you if you’re Mexican” crowd work.
For some reason, that band must wear black. If it’s Molotov, they’ll also turn their jumbotron monochrome. The better to recall their 1990s MTV videos. The better to see their black leather jackets, boots and tees.
The Mexican group began its BM set with its self-flagellating “Amateur.” It then quickly got into mother-**** with its aptly named hit. Hair-gelled young couples in all black and middle-aged mothers with gleaming white teeth yelled along.
The group continued deeper into its political canon. It played the borderland standoff “Frijolero” and the bureaucratic-disparaging “Gimme Tha Power.” Near the end of the set, after much fan chanting, the group laid out its rap-rock hit named for a homophobic expletive.
Mayra Álvarez, 46, in a Mexico baseball cap and a blue jacket, sang song after song. She recalled her parents breaking her first Molotov CD in the mid-’90s. They asked her if she agreed with some of the band’s lyrics attacking a woman as promiscuous. She didn’t.
But, as someone raised in Reynosa and McAllen, she felt a strong attachment to the group’s rebellious cry against those marginalizing others.
“They were the first to be honest,” she said in Spanish. “I like that they talk about discrimination of Latinos in the U.S. (Their music) is for those of us who are out of place. It makes us feel proud.”
— E.T.G´
8. Ramón Ayala was still masterful
With Ramón Ayala on stage, it was as if the 7:15 p.m. slot was the headliner. (It wasn’t; the festival kept on until midnight.)
The pained bellows of women and men breezed up in the approaching winds. The accordion played tight and slow. Ayala, aged 78, sat. He let his hype-man charge the crowd with requests for phonelights and smother him with compliments.
But after all these years and all the pomp, Ayala’s voice remained a delicate coo. Within the changing aesthetic of norteño and regional male vocals, where raspiness, grunt or even boyishness have claimed most popularity, its tranquility and tenderness comforted. He paused and held the final syllable of lines, like a pigeon does with a string of its calls.
It was a voice that worked for songs of promise (“Un Rinconcito en el Cielo”), loss (“Tragos Amargos”) and pardon (“Que Me Entierren Cantando”).
— E.T.G´
9. The nostalgia of Bésame infatuates, overwhelms
Sonia Magaña, 25, of Houston, said she was a newer fan of her favorite act at the festival, Grupo Frontera, having developed a love for the band about a year ago. Meanwhile, her friend, 30-year-old Gustavo Trejo, had loved Belanova, one of the final acts of the day, since childhood. He lost count of how many times he’d seen the pop group in concert. They agreed that the lineup was stacked — Magaña’s jaw dropped when Trejo reminded her that Gloria Trevi, the Mexican pop star whose career launched in the ’80s, was scheduled to perform.
“I think that’s the problem with this festival — there’s too many good artists that everybody’s kind of confused what to go to,” Trejo said. “It’s a good problem, but then you want to see everybody, but how can you?”
Mayra Camarillo (no relation to this writer), 43, was particularly looking forward to seeing alternative rock band Elefante and grupero band Bronco. When she was growing up in the South Texas city of Roma, her mom usually played Bronco and Tejano music whenever she was cleaning the house.
“All of this music is from my childhood,” Camarillo said.
— V.C.