The festival’s opening day drew 22,000 people to the Expo grounds and delivered some of its standout moments with Julieta Venegas, Amaia, M-Clan, Loquillo and Rigoberta Bandini. The heat accompanied an afternoon and evening in which generations, styles and artists from Spain and Latin America came together once again.
At 5 p.m., the heat was still intense in Zaragoza, and walking across the Expo esplanade was hardly the best way to escape it. But Vive Latino has its own rules. Thousands had already begun filling the grounds as the first concerts got underway and, long before the night’s biggest names took the stage, it was clear the festival was on course for one of its largest days yet.
In the end, 22,000 people passed through the Expo grounds on Friday, September 4. The figure came alongside another significant milestone for this fifth edition: for the first time since Vive Latino arrived in Zaragoza, all 15,000 two-day passes put on sale had sold out.
The afternoon began by splitting the audience among the three stages and forcing festivalgoers to make choices early. El Practicante was tasked with opening the program, while Niña Polaca found an enthusiastic response despite an unforgiving time slot for any outdoor concert. There was also a special appointment for Aragonese fans: Volador returned to the stage before a Zaragoza audience 15 years after the band broke up.
But one of the first major crowds gathered for Julieta Venegas. The Mexican singer appeared with her accordion and an advantage few artists can match at a festival: a catalog the audience knows almost instinctively. “Andar conmigo,” “Lento,” “Limón y sal” and “Me voy” turned the Ámbar stage into a mass singalong. She needed no elaborate production. The songs did the rest.
It was also a strong example of what continues to set Vive Latino apart from many of the festivals that tour Spain each summer. In Zaragoza, within just a few hours, a Mexican songwriter such as Venegas can share the bill with one of the most recognizable figures in new Spanish pop, Amaia; the rock of M-Clan and Loquillo; an Argentine band such as El Kuelgue; and a Mexican outfit such as Plastilina Mosh. That dialogue between the two shores remains the hallmark of a festival born in Mexico that found its European home in Zaragoza.
Amaia brings generations together
Pignoise then took the Caja Rural de Aragón stage, appealing to a different kind of memory. Songs such as “Nada que perder,” “Te entiendo” and “Sigo llorando por ti” showed just how firmly the pop-rock of the early 21st century has entered the realm of collective nostalgia.
And then came Amaia.
Her concert was one of the day’s central moments and drew one of Friday’s largest crowds. A young front row might have been expected, but there were many more age groups around it. That cross-generational appeal became one of the night’s defining images.
Amaia appeared with the natural ease that has become part of her stage persona, backed by a repertoire that now allows her to hold the attention of thousands with ease. Songs including “Yamaguchi,” “Tengo un pensamiento” and “Bienvenidos al show” rang out as the audience joined in on tracks that, at times, called for something unusual at a festival of this scale: listening.
Even the heat found its way into the concert. The singer joked about the hand fans she could see in the crowd and asked people to throw one onto the stage. Later, she starred in one of the most talked-about moments of her set when she came down to the front rows and found her father there.
A few yards away, El Kuelgue offered something entirely different. The Argentine band once again showed that its music works precisely because it is difficult to confine to a single label. Theater, humor, improvisation and shifts in style took the concert into unpredictable territory, confirming one of Vive Latino’s strengths: venturing beyond the main stages continues to pay off.
From M-Clan to Loquillo, rock holds its ground
As the sun went down, a different audience and a different language emerged.
M-Clan took the Caja Rural de Aragón stage to celebrate three decades of its career. Carlos Tarque still possesses one of those voices capable of commanding even an open-air venue filled with thousands. “Llamando a la Tierra,” “Miedo” and “Quédate a dormir” laid the groundwork for an inevitable finale in “Carolina.” The opening bars were enough for the audience to claim the song as its own.
Then Loquillo once again demonstrated that certain catalogs cross generations with remarkable ease. The Barcelona native looked back on a career spanning nearly five decades, drawing on songs such as “El rompeolas,” “El ritmo del garaje,” “Feo, fuerte y formal” and “Rock and Roll Star.”
There was little need to explain what was happening. Parents were singing alongside children who had likely discovered those songs many years after their release. That generational coexistence, already evident from the opposite end of the spectrum with Amaia, became one of the day’s most recognizable features.
Meanwhile, Mexican artist Ed Maverick offered a chance to slow things down from the VL Stage. His concert was a reminder that the musical exchange between Spain and Latin America proposed by the festival does not necessarily depend on anthems. It can also be built around intimate songs and a guitar.
Shortly afterward came another piece of Mexican alternative music history. Plastilina Mosh brought to Zaragoza the blend of rock, electronic music, funk and pop culture that made the Monterrey group one of the emblematic names of the so-called Avanzada Regia movement of the late 1990s.
Rigoberta changes the tone of the night
If rock had dominated much of the previous hours, Rigoberta Bandini changed the landscape entirely.
Her concert was conceived as a collective celebration. “In Spain We Call It Soledad,” “Perra” and “Ay mamá” found an audience ready to sing and dance, while “Pamela Anderson” connected the show to her most recent repertoire.
By then, Vive Latino had definitively moved beyond the logic of isolated concerts. The constant movement between stages, the lines, the chance encounters, Mexican wrestling, food stalls and thousands of people making their way through the Expo had created the small city within a city that Zaragoza has known for five editions now.
There was still more night to come.
Sanguijuelas del Guadiana took the stage after midnight with a proposal blending rock, rumba and references to rural life through a generational lens. Rawayana then brought its combination of reggae, funk, pop and Caribbean rhythms to the main stage, keeping the dancing going as the
