Coldplay To Play Super Bowl

Posted: December 5, 2015 in Events
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Like it or not, Coldplay has been confirmed as the headliner for the 2016 Super Bowl Half-time Show. Some aren’t happy, as expected, but Coldplay’s 15 year career and over 80 millions records sold prove that they deserve to headline this show. From the moment “Yellow” hit the radio in 2000 through now, the band has contributed great music through the years. “Clocks”, “Fix U”, “Viva La Vida”, “Paradise”, are just a handful of hits. True, the band may be a bit light (or slow) for the show but they have a few up beat hits and that’s why they’re inviting Bruno Mars to join them on stage. I recommend they bring in their buddy DJ Avicii to help them out with some EDM and back them up for “A Sky Full of Stars”. If you’ve ever been to a Coldplay concert, you know you leave in awe at the end of the night and in a great mood. The music, the band, the lights, the visuals all contribute to making you feel this way and I can’t wait for the band to bring this to the Super Bowl.

Red Bull Presents Big Sean

Posted: November 23, 2015 in Concert Review, Events, music festival, Uncategorized
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Red Bull once again brought 30 days in L.A. for the month of November, with one musical act, a night, at venues throughout the city. The tix were only $15 bucks and most of the venues were small club-size places. I got lucky enough to score tix for Big Sean at the Hollywood Palladium this past weekend. I missed the opening acts and arrived at 11:00 pm, just in time for the man of the night. Big Sean came out pumped up and took the fans through his mixtape songs, to his biggest hits, and even threw in the EDM “Open Wide” from his recent collab with Calvin Harris. I was really expecting a Drake, Kanye, hell even a Nicki surprise but no major guests stopped by except for Jhene Aiko. To me, she’s huge and I’m a big fan but she hasn’t yet hit it mainstream and many might not know who she is. Anyways, she came out and performed “Beware” and “I Know”, her two collabs with Big Sean. Big Sean was gracious enough to share two previews of new songs he has ready to come out soon and the crowd went crazy listening to them. At almost 90minutes, the rapper was being told it was time to end the night but not before finishing with one of the best FU to your ex songs in recent years “I Don’t Fuck With You”. Great show, great venue, great price…only in L.A.

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Coachella Latino Acts for 2016 – Part 1

Posted: November 12, 2015 in Events, music festival
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Coachella, listen up! We need a little more Latino music representation at the festival. You guys have done a great job in the past with acts like: Caifanes, Cafe Tacvba, and Julieta Venegas, among others but we need a little more sprinkling of Latino flavor. Below are a few suggestions for your 2016 line up, which I will be a part of during weekend one. I plan to post a few more suggestions in the near future but for now here you go, take note!

Natalia Lafourcade– She’s been a well-known indie pop girl for many years and lately, it looks like her exposure is going beyond Mexico. The Latin Grammys have taken noticed, nominating her 5 times for her most recent album. I hope you guys have her in your radar too!

La Santa Cecilia– A local L.A band that has been blowing up in the last couple of years. Winners of a Latin Grammy in 2014 for best rock/alt Latino album. They would bring the cumbia and make the people dance to a whole different rhythm under the Coachella sun.

Kat Dahlia– Esta Cubanita has some serious skills that made me take notice with her 2013 debut “Gangsta”. I saw her live a year ago at a small club in LA and she performed to a full house. With the new material she released this year, she would bring some cool Spanglish hip hop vibe to the Gobi or Mojave tent.

Kinky– Sure, they’ve been there a couple times before but that was over 10 years ago. They’ve created some amazing material since, it’s time to bring these guys from Monterrey back. They can rock, pop, dance, and play one hell of an accordion.

TBT: Cuando Maná Era Un Grupo De Rock

Posted: November 12, 2015 in TBT
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Recuerdan cuando Maná era la mejor banda de Rock del mundo? Si claro, ellos siguen cosechando exitos, pero cuando fue la ultima cancion de rock exitosa de ellos? Ya van mas de 15 años que solo nos dan baladas, boleros, o mas recientemente una chingadera electronica. Mejor hay que recordar el Maná de antes.

On Your Feet for Gloria Estefan

Posted: November 5, 2015 in Musical Legend
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Gloria Estefan is bringing her life story to Broadway. The musical ‘On Your Feet” is the story of Gloria and Emilio Estefan…cuban born talented musicians that were able to achieve the American Dream and beyond. Together they have a lengthy discography of 23 albums that started in 1977 with The Miami Sound Machine. The string of hits didn’t come later until the mid 80’s with Latin flavored classics such as “Conga” and “Get On Your Feet”. Classic ballads such as “Anything For You” and “Words Get In The Way” also helped Gloria sell over 100 million records worldwide. Clearly making her one of the most successful singers in history (American and Latin). During her career, Gloria put her Latin roots front and center by merging Latin rhythms into dance beats and sometimes by simply singing completely in Spanish and successfully selling these albums.

On July of 2014, I was finally able to see Gloria live at the Hollywood Bowl while she was promoting her The Standards album. I grew up listening to Gloria in the 80’s and 90’s and have remained a great fan. As a latino kid, it was great to see and hear Spanish (or Spanglish) music on TV and radio. There weren’t many popular Latin singers on English stations compared to now and it is clear, Gloria should be credited with opening the doors to this generation’s Spanglish pop stars. I hope On Your Feet is a great success and is added to the long list of Gloria’s achievements. I can only hope for a touring version to visit Los Angeles in the near future. WEPA!

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Madonna Brings Rebel Heart to Los Angeles

Posted: October 28, 2015 in Concert Review
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Madonna showed L.A. last night why she is the Queen. Her concerts are not just concerts, they are some of the best live shows out there in any format. Besides the decades of hits, you also get the acrobatics, the amazing choreography and the state of the art stage. This is why she has some of the highest earning tours in history and I’m sure the Rebel Heart Tour will be among the top tours too. Yeah, you get a lot of the new stuff (which not everyone loves) but it blends in so well with the older songs that it all just feels like one great dance mix. She included some rarely performed classics for our show and the crowd was loving it. Some of them were: “Burning Up”, “True Blue”, “Deeper and Deeper”, “Dress You Up”, “Material Girl”, among many other classics. These are songs she has not performed in many many years. Of course, she also included the more popular hits “Like A Prayer”, “Vogue”, and “Holiday”. The prices tickets are high, VERY high, but you can see that your money is being well spent on the production of this extraordinary show. To be honest though, I would still pay this high price if only to hear some of those rare classics she performed last night. There were many celebrities in the audience (as they usually are in LA), which included: Beyonce, Jay Z, Salma Hayek, Queen Latifah among others. A very special guest, Katy Perry, was front and center and ended up coming up on stage to help with one of Madonna’s skit. That’s probably the one criticism I have of the show, less skits and “comedy” next time. Overall, Madonna proved that age is just a number and showed the younger pop tarts that they have VERY big shoes to fill and have to step up their game with their own concerts. As I stated in my first sentence, Madonna showed everyone why she is Queen.

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L Festival – Segundo Dia

Posted: October 27, 2015 in Concert Review, Events, music festival
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La fiesta continue para un segundo dia y el ambiente siguio igual de prendido como el dia anterior. El dia de Domingo se vio con las presentaciones de Gloria Trevi, La Arrolladora Banda el Limon, 3BallMTY, y cerrando como se debe cerra la noche, el Sr. Juan Gabriel. Me encanto que 3BallMTY tocaron en el Dance Hangar stage que era un escenario pequeno y nos dio la oportunidad de ver a estos chicos up close. El highlight de la noche fue poder ver a Juan Gabriel cantar exito tras exito por casi dos horas y ver al alrededor a toda la gente cantando sus canciones y disfrutando al maximo su presentacion. El press release de Univeral Musica nos dice que ubieron 35,000 personas en asistencia y espero que sea exito suficiente para poder tener este mismo festival otra vez en 2016. Mis recomendaciones seria un lugar mas pequeno y mas central a Los Angeles. Me gusto mucho la idea de los diferentes escenarios con diferentes generos, espero que continue este set up. La idea de combinar el arte latino a este festival tambien fue genial y espero lo continuen. Una buena idea para el festival en 2016 es tenerlo en el mes de Septiembre, ya que es Hispanic Heritage month aqui en los Estados Unidos y seria una buena celebracion para nuestra gente.

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L Festival – Primer Dia

Posted: October 27, 2015 in music festival
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El primer L Festival tomo lugar este pasado fin de semana y parece que todo fue un exito. El primer dia del festival fue el Sabado y se vieron actuaciones de La Santa Cecilia, David Bisbal, Los Angeles Azules, Enrique Iglesias, Julion Alvarez entre muchos muchos mas. El set up de los diferentes escenarios con diferentes generos de musica fue genial. El principal escenario fue el Universal Stage y aqui fue donde estuvieron los bigger artists y donde estuverion la mayoria de la gente. Lo malo de esto fue que los otros escenarios y artistas mas pequenos no tuvieron mucho publico. Te todas maneras, fue una buena idea que espero continuen este set up el proximo ano. Lo interesante fue que Enrique Iglesias no cerro la noche, ya que el es una artista reconocido por todo el mundo en Espanol y Ingles. Aunque yo no sigo mucho la musica regional mexicana, tengo entendido que Julion Alvarez esta arrasando por donde quiera que va y es uno de los artistas del momento en este genero. Por esto, yo creo cerro la noch de Sabado ya que el publico del evento es mas entrado a este genero. Sea lo que sea lo bueno fue los artistas cantaron casi un set completo. No salieron a cantar cinco canciones nada mas, si no cantaron mas de una hora y esto fue increible con la magnitud de artistas (mas de 30!) que participaron. Eso solo fue el primer dia….todavia faltaba el Domingo!

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Flaca Covers Como La Flor

Posted: October 22, 2015 in New Music
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Did you know Flaca from Orange is the New Black sang? Neither did I. Did you know Flaca just released a new video? Neither did I, until today. Technically, it is not Flaca herself but Jackie Cruz, the actress that plays the not always bright, chola looking, latina inmate in Netflix’s series. Jackie Cruz can sing and who knew it? She just released a video to “Como La Flor” with a chilled acoustic version of the song. I like it, I like it a lot. It doesn’t sound like her trying to duplicate a Selena song, instead she is making the song into her own style. I hope to hear more music soon!

TBT: La Tortura de Shakira – 10 Years Ago

Posted: October 22, 2015 in TBT
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Shakira was already a household name when she released “La Tortura” ten years ago. It was the first single for her Spanish album Fijacion Oral Vol. I and it instantly became a huge hit in Spanish and English media formats. In the Spanish Billboard charts, it set a record by staying at #1 for 25 consecutive weeks and became the biggest Spanish single of 2005. Interestingly enough, the single reached #23 on the English charts and had regular airplay on popular English radio stations. The video earned several MTV Video Music Awards nominations and Shakira with Alejandro Sanz were invited to perform. This was the first Spanish performance made on the VMAs. After the success of this single, Shakira continued to make more hits but it is important to acknowledge the language and cultural lines “La Tortura” surpassed to become one of the biggest singles of 2005. For this, I chose it as my TBT blog. Enjoy the video below and also I included my personal video from Shakira‘s last concert in LA exactly five years ago on October 23, 2010.

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