Tag Archives: Mexico City

Grupo Frontera to Perform in Mexico City’s Zócalo During This Year’s Grito de Independencia

Posted on by
Reply

Grupo Frontera will be making a special visit to Mexico’s most iconic plaza…

The Regional Mexican group will perform at Mexico City’s Zócalo — the country’s most important public square — on September 15 for the annual Grito de Independencia event, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has announced.

Grupo Frontera“The members of Grupo Frontera will be there on September 15 at night in the Zócalo,” said the Mexican president at the end of his usual morning conference, where he played Frontera’s cover of “No Se Va,” originally by Colombian group Morat.

López Obrador reiterated his taste for the music of the Regional Mexican group, which he has included in his playlist to challenge corridos tumbados, a musical genre that although he has said he will not prohibit, he considers to glorify drug traffickers.

Grupo Frontera joins a long list of national and international artists who have set foot in the second-largest public square in the world, only behind Tiananmen in Beijing. Musicians such as Paul McCartney, Justin Bieber, Manu Chao, Shakira, Café Tacvba and the late icon of regional Mexican music Vicente Fernández, among many others, have performed at the Zócalo.

The attendance record for free concerts held in the so-called Primer Cuadro in the Mexican capital is held by the Argentine rock band Los Fabulosos Cadillacs, which achieved the milestone of gathering 300,000 people on the night of June 3, beating Grupo Firme, who held the record after summoning 280,000 people in September 2022, according to figures from the government of Mexico City.

This week, the sextet scored their first top 10 hit on a Billboard album chart with El Comienzo, which jumped 39-4 on the Top Latin Albums chart on August 19 after its first full week of activity.

El Comienzo also jumped 12-2 on Regional Mexican Albums and debuted at No. 39 on the Billboard 200 all-genre chart.

Los Fabulosos Cadillacs’ Free Mexico City Concert Breaks Zócalo Attendance Record

Posted on by
Reply

Los Fabulosos Cadillacs are breaking records… 

The legendary Argentine rockers drew a crowd of 300,000 to their free concert at Mexico City’s Zócalo, on Saturday, June 3, breaking the attendance record set by Grupo Firme last year, according to data supplied by the local government.

Los Fabulosos Cadillacs, ZócaloUp until last night, Grupo Firme, the boisterous Regional Mexican group, had drawn the biggest crowd ever (280,000) to the historic Mexican site.

But last night Los Cadillacs bested Grupo Firme and other seminal acts, including Rosalía, Sir Paul McCartney, Roger Waters, Shakira, the late ranchera icon Vicente Fernández, and even pop star Justin Bieber.

“¡Winds of liberty, blood of a fighter!” tweeted Mexico City mayor Claudia Sheinbaum, quoting the lyrics of Los Fabulosos Cadillac’s famous song “Matador.” “We’ve made history again, breaking attendance records with 300,000 people in the Zócalo of Mexico City, enjoying an epic concert from Los Fabulosos Cadillacs,” she added.

Los Fabulosos Cadillacs, Zócalo The band — headed by singer Gabriel Fernández Capello, better known as Vicentico, bassist Flavio Cianciarulo and saxophonist Sergio Rotman — took over the second largest public square in the world (behind Tiananmen Square in Peking) with their blend of rock, ska, reggae and punk.

From early in the morning on Saturday, people from different parts of the city, and the country, lined up at el Zócalo in an effort to get access to the front rows of the stage. By the time the show started in the evening, the crowd was so large and tight, that some opted to move to the back to breath better.

The now-historic performance, which lasted around 90 minutes, is part of the group’s El León del Ritmo tour, which celebrates 30 years of one of its most celebrated albums, 1992’s El León, and three decades since the release of their fabled single “Matador.”

The fact that Cadillacs have been around for so long, and that they perform rock en español – a genre many say is fading — makes their accomplishment even more impressive. “They called them old, they made fun of them, and they answered with 300,000 people,” tweeted one fan.

“What happiness! How enormous and indescribable to be playing for all you! Thank you, eternal thanks. We receive this with our hearts,” said a visibly moved Vicentico to an adoring audience that sang to every song in their repertoire.

Following their performance at Coachella in April, Los Fabulosos Cadillacs will take their El León del Ritmo Tour to different countries, including Mexico, the Viña del Mar Festival in Chile, Spain and the U.S.

Here’s the full set list from their record-breaking performance:

  1. “Demasiada Presión”
  2. “El Muerto”
  3. “Carmela”
  4. “Estoy Harto De Verte Con Otros”
  5. “El Genio del Dub”
  6. “Calaveras y Diablitos”
  7. “Los Condenaditos”
  8. “El Aguijón”
  9. “Nro. 2 En Tu Lista”
  10. “Saco Azul”
  11. “Siguiendo La Luna”
  12. “V Centenario”
  13. “Carnaval Toda La Vida”
  14. “Mal Bicho”
  15. “Matador”
  16. “Mi Novia Se Cayó en un Pozo Ciego”
  17. “Vasos Vacíos”
  18. “El Satánico Dr. Cadillac”
  19. “Yo No Me Sentaría en Tu Mesa”

Grupo Firme Performs at Halftime During the NFL’s Monday Night Football Game

Posted on by
Reply

Grupo Firme is celebrating a career touchdown…

The Regional Mexican band headlined the halftime show at Estadio Azteca in Mexico City during the Monday Night Football game in which the San Francisco 49ers defeated the Arizona Cardinals 38-10.

Grupo FirmeThe return of the NFL to Mexico featured a week-long celebration of pride that transcends borders, as well as the nexus between Mexican culture and American football with activities focused on art, fashion, music, and youth football.

As part of the League’s “Por la Cultura” campaign, music has been a focal point of the NFL’s marketing strategy, kicking off the season with a J Balvin concert and releasing a Por La Cultura mixtape featuring Yandel, El Alfa, and Snow Tha Product among others. Latino football fans are the fastest-growing demographic for the NFL and an important audience the league is hoping to grow in the coming years.

Grupo Firme, formed in the northern Mexican city of Tijuana, arrived at the so-called “Coloso de Santa Úrsula,” as the Estadio Azteca is also known, after a massively successful touring year, including their concert at the Zócalo of Mexico City last September that garnered an audience of 280,000, a series of presentations at Foro Sol, a major arena also located in the Mexican capital, and their main stage set at Coachella.

“This is an achievement in our career, we are going ‘at a steady pace’ as we say it. The truth is that we were not thinking to be part of an event as important as this beautiful night,” singer Eduin Caz told Billboard Español. “It will be something historic, a different audience will know us. They will listen to us and we will give our best.”

The Latin Grammy and Latin Billboard Music Awards winners performed their hits “Ya supérame”, “El amor no fue para mi” and “Gracias,” for the 78,000 NFL fans in attendance.

This was the first Monday Night Football game played in Mexico City since 2019, after a forced two-year break because of the COVID-19 pandemic. For the musicians, the presence of the NFL in Mexico is a good opportunity for two communities to honor sports and music without language barriers.

“Something that we have realized and that we are very grateful for is that the public and the people who listen to Grupo Firme are increasingly bicultural. We have already seen people who do not speak Spanish singing at our concerts. It is a blessing for us that this is growing and that opens the door to be at events like this”, said singer Jhonny Caz.

Mexican singer Sofía Reyes was chosen this year to perform the national anthem of Mexico. She electrified the stadium as soon as she started singing the first verse.

“For me it is an honor to sing the Mexican national anthem and above all to sing it here in my country at an event like this. It’s crazy! I am happy and very grateful,” Reyes told Billboard Español prior to the game.

 

On the American side, the Mexican-American singer Marisol Hernández “La Marisoul”, from the musical group La Santa Cecilia, performed The Star-Spangled Banner, the United States National Anthem.

“This is my first time at the Estadio Azteca, singing the national anthem of the United States. I feel that my two worlds, my two countries, come together in a beautiful way and I can’t hide my feelings from this experience. For years at La Santa Cecilia we have tried to build musical bridges and I feel that tonight is a great example of this,” said Hernández.

The match in Mexico was the fifth and final of the 2022 International Series, which included three games in London and, for the first time, a game in Munich, Germany. Musical performances from the game at Estadio Azteca on November 21st can be viewed on Mundo NFL’s YouTube channel.