panic attack<\/a>. He also recalled playing a private Houston party they’d been booked for months in advance, just as “Un X100to,” their record-breaking\u00a0collab with Bad Bunny, was becoming a global hit.<\/p>\nHouston was pivotal in “opening the doors” to bigger venues and opportunities. And after several years of upward trajectory, they\u2019re now established stars in regional Mexican music. The set design is bigger and bolder. There were striking red visuals and continuous\u00a0pyro. The clothes are sleeker. Solis has replaced the baggy T-shirts and jeans with form-fitting tops and leather pants.<\/p>\n
The group’s sound is\u00a0rooted in traditional Tejano and norte\u00f1o music. But they experiment with other genres, too, especially onstage. Opener “La\u00a0del Proceso” morphed effortlessly into an electro-merengue bounce. “Por Qu\u00e9 Ser\u00e1” kicked off with a reggae groove. “ALV” balanced a steady shuffle with reggaeton. “No Se Va,” the group’s breakthrough hit, was reworked with an extended pop intro.<\/p>\n
To be sure, most of the two-hour set was puro baile vibes. In Mexican culture, a baile is a large party, usually with live\u00a0music that couples can dance to. “No\u00a0Capea” and “Pary,” two of the band’s most recent songs, were standouts\u00a0that played like zapateados, boot-stomping rhythms that had the arena on its feet.<\/p>\n
The guys took swigs of tequila\u00a0and frequently joked with each other onstage, even as they kept the energy up through “911,” “Ay Mama” and “Bebe Dame.” During band intros, they played snippets of\u00a0songs by classic acts Pesado, Intocable and Grupo Limite.<\/p>\n
“Mariache\u00f1o” singer\u00a0Christian Nodal<\/a>\u00a0was a surprise guest late in the set. But the real treat for local fans was La Mafia,\u00a0the\u00a0first Tejano act to tour Mexico and Latin America on a stadium-level scale starting in the late 1980s. Singer Oscar De La Rosa took a solo turn on the ballad “Me Estoy Enamorando” and was joined by Solis for “Un Mill\u00f3n de Rosas.”<\/p>\nLa Mafia has never received enough credit for revolutionizing Tejano music and paving the way for today’s regional hits, so it was nice to see\u00a0Frontera give the Houston band its flowers \u2014 or rosas.<\/p>\n