Tonight I went to see Café Tacuba live at La Zona Rosa. They opened for themselves, playing a total of two and a quarter hours with just a five minute break or so at the end of the first hour. It was a long, but very entertaining performance.
They were supposed to start their set at 8:00pm, but naturally ran 40 minutes late. When they began to enter the stage, the crowd went wild, and the lead singer, Rubén Albarrán, stepped front stage wearing a large black velvet tophat, his hair in pigtails, and some slight facial hair. I couldn’t help but see Jamiroquai on stage, or perhaps the lead singer of Ghostland Observatory. Rubén can match the stage presence and energy of either.
As one could imagine, the crowd was mostly Mexican. They certainly knew how to pump up the venue full of energy. At one point, the crowd was in this pseudo-mosh state, where the whole mass of people was behaving like particles in a fluid, waving back and forth like the tide on a beach. I don’t mean slow swaying holding lighters up in the air singing Hey Jude style, I mean a gentle yet distant 4 steps forward, and a harsh undercurrent feeling that would rip you quickly 4 steps back. Repeat. It was strange, but at the same time relaxing.
Out of all of the songs that they played, many of which came from their new album, Sino, I only recognized maybe 5 or so songs. It turns out that the crowd’s favorite songs (2/4 timing which allows for happy jumping music) seldom aligned with my favorite songs by the band.
My only disappointment came when they played Dejate Caer, which is probably my favorite song of theirs. For whatever reason, they just didn’t seem in sync, and at times it fell apart. Up until that point, they had performed quite amazingly. Oh well, their little dance routine interlude was still campy and fun (as much as I anticipated it to be).
Apparently I have a lot more of their music to continue discovering.
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