Julieta Venegas is probably an ‘alt-artist’ for white Americans and a mainstream artist for Mexicans. What did I know about her beside a few tunes I had heard on KCRW? Not much, except that she was singing these delicate and quiet songs, always in Spanish, and was the NPR critics’ darling. So that’s why I wasn’t too worried about arriving at Amoeba late for her in-store on Tuesday night. I was dead wrong one more time, it was a parking nightmare and a full house!
The whole show was in Spanish, a guy even introduced her in Spanish and the Latino audience was super enthusiastic,… err, NPR’s darling and alternative radio’s best secret? No way! She is super popular and she had attracted a large crowd of die-hard fans, playing a lively set with her musicians while only saying one or two sentences in English the whole time. I know, living in Los Angeles, I should have learned Spanish a long time ago!
Julieta was celebrating the release of her sixth studio album ‘Los Momentos’, and her tunes performed with her clear and unique voice, mostly accompanied on piano, sometimes on guitar, had that special blend of edgy songwriting and mainstream latino pop,… or pop in general, I have always found ridiculous that a special section for pop or rock, like ‘rock en Espanol’ exists in the bins of record stores! But Julieta sounded a little different from what I could remember, the songs were sunny, whereas this college radio a few years ago was rather playing melancholic melodies, but this girl was really upbeat, well almost… I don’t know much about her, but she has quite a career, with a start in a punk band (Tijuana No!), six albums, 5 Latin Grammys and 1 Grammy Award, and different musical explorations along the way. Her most successful album, 'Limon y Sal’ achieved Platinum status in many countries, and her hit ‘Mi Voy’, that she performed to close the show, reached gold in Mexico.
I have read that her last album was inspired by Mexico’s rampant drug violence, but it totally escaped me as the songs were engaging and vibrant, even sometimes dance-y, and a dark subject like this couldn't have been further from my mind when looking at her playing bouncy keys backed up by her exotic drummer and her back up singer. The new song ‘Hoy’ had this catchy sing-along chorus, and her classic ‘Eres Para Mí’ mixed a vibrant pop tune with an interesting rap. When she performed ‘Mi Voy’, that the whole crowd was singing along, despite the language barrier, it was working very well, Julieta was all smile, and she just looked happy and plain adorable. Yeah totally adorable! At this moment, she looked and sounded like a sort of Mexican Jenny Lewis to me, she was totally in charge of her music, and she obviously meant a lot to all these people.
