Concert Review: Chicago’s Alternative Latin Fest, Ruido Fest, Returns For Seventh Year And Rolls With The Changes

Sep 01, 2022 admin_bitlc Features, Music News, Reviews 0

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by Vernon Hester

 

The seventh annual Ruido Fest roared through Union Park August 19 through to the 21st and managed to confound expectations. Not only were there innumerable cancellations [Maldita Vecindad for starters] but some very pleasant surprises in their place [local rockers Avantist and a surprise second gig for raunch hound Silverio]. If that wasn’t enough, the flavor of this edition of the festival veered strongly toward pop [Ely Guerra, Kevin Kaarl, Estereomance, Carla Morrison,  and Ed Maverick] over punk and hard rock/metal while the predictions of innumerable weather men and women was undone by the supremely sunny weather [well mostly…it sprinkled on Saturday]. Yes the festival was a resounding success [at this point I find it extremely hard to believe that the producers of this particular event could muck it up], yes it introduced me [a stubbornly non-Latin/Spanish speaker who has never heard of many of the artists on the bill] to a wealth of new and wonderful music, and yes, the happy fans wiggled their asses off and had a great time. The surprise this time, is that with so much pop turning up onstage, the excitement generated was more passionate and appreciated. The crowds listened intently and fully enjoyed and digested rather than reacted to the music laid out before them and that was something of a shock.

Friday, Day 1, August 19

The first band I caught on Friday was the barely legal Los Aptos who have made a name for themselves by releasing music online without the aid of a record label or much hype. Juan Ortega sang his sweet little heart out and his wording evoked an unguarded melancholia while Alex Rivera’s fret work kept the set from getting too dreary. Estereomance veered toward Vegas sheen as frontwomen Aria Del Valle and Paulina Rezain’s gentle harmonies and matching outfits[they wore spangly ribbons which bore a strong resemblance to what Cher and Tina Turner wore when they duetted on “The Cher Show” in 1975] suggested 1970s cheese. The music recalled pre-Giorgio Moroder Donna Summer disco with barer hooks and a breathy airiness that lingered like mist. Thankfully Amalia Ramirez Hernandez and her band Bruses hit the stage and saved the festival from all that pleasant pop. Flipping the rowdy crowd the bird, tossing her pink hair every which way, sticking her tongue out while making faces, she came off like a bratty teenaged Barbie Doll who found her way into the cooking sherry. It was refreshing to get a hot blast of her nutty energy [at one point she commanded the audience, “DON’T BE A PUSSY!!!”] but the band’s new Monstrous [on Monstercat Records] was the kind of frisky girl rock we haven’t gotten since Blondie’s 1980 classic Eat to the Beat [Chrysalis Records, 1980]. Hernandez and her cohorts blew the lid off the festival and it was pretty hard to recover after that.

Next up was Ed Maverick and a return to pop, which was not a bad thing. Like one of Saturday’s high lights Kevin Kaarl, Maverick’s music does not exactly go well with hip gyrations, dancing women, and frills and he and his music commanded attention. Granted I had no idea what he was singing about but i thoroughly enjoyed the richness of his baritone and the wistfulness of his songs. Argentina’s Babasonics got down to earthier matters as the band locked into a deep sinewy groove that seemed designed for making babies. Front man Adrian Dargelos Rodriguez kept slinking in and out of the shadows while he seemingly contorted himself into a convoluted self-caress while delivering his vocals with the knowing confidence of a well-paid gigolo. Bathed in low light, Babasonics’s set was one of the most intoxicating I’ve seen in years and watching guitarist Diego “Uma” Rodriguez dancing like no one was watching made it downright unforgettable. Friday’s closer, Cuco, aka Omar Banos certainly had his work cut out for him since his grooves were lighter and poppier and his stage presence next to Babasonics was like putting a mastiff next to a puppy dog. Which does not suggest that Cuco didn’t deliver…the fans who squealed their lungs out [and presumably wet their drawers] got what they came for.

Saturday, Day 2, August 20

Saturday got off to a surprisingly fizzy start with home town band Avantist who were a last-minute replacement for El Mato A Un Polica Mutorizado. The brothers Arias ran with a jacked up set high on drama and pizazz while having a high old time infecting a larger audience with their hard art/dance rock jams. Avantist may be the best defense yet for acknowledging the Partridge Family, but this time the cohesion of their playing defied blood lines and they essentially went ape shit. Vocalist Fernando whipped back and forth shrieking, “I CAN’T STAND YOU!!!,” guitarist David tore through his parts with a ragged ferociousness, bassist Erick rocked an intricately pleated knee length skirt and shrimpy Luis pummeled his skins like a blood thirsty demon baby. Elise Paprika followed that over-the-top set by reaching even higher. Yowling into the blue sky with her hair a shambles over her face, wringing her shirt into knots, Paprika and her band not only complemented Avantist’s chaotic energy but topped it by way of a feral vibe that was at once brutal and hypnotic. For those looking for that true punk spirit from decades ago, her set was the closest thing Ruido Fest 2022 had to offer.

The energy came down considerably with the nearly ethereal Porter whose sleek soundscapes were augmented with a light bosa nova  beat. Lead vocalist David Velasco sounded almost as lithe as the band’s oeuvre as he hit notes that seemed to scrap the heavens. Porter was extremely pleasant, but Kevin Kaarl’s acoustic set was firmly planted on solid ground. Almost facially immobile, his songs were clearly romantic with a resonance that evaded melancholia or drama. It was a bold, naked performance with Kaarl and his lone percussionist letting the songs speak for themselves without unnecessary flash or augmentation.

The closers for the day were much less subtle and came packed with drama of differing flavors. Carla Morrison took the stage in a flamethrower orange upholstered outfit and sang with such intensity that the seemed to recall old fashioned torch singing. Articulate, passionate, and expressive her performance was altogether sublime and thrilling.  Saturday’s closer, hard ska rockers Los Fabuloso Cadillacs took the main stage and ripped through a set of sheer ferociousness which kept the packed crowd dancing in the pools of mud.

Sunday, Day 3, August 21

The final day of the festival was full of surprises, one of which was the unexpected bright and sunny weather. Rain had been promised for the entire weekend the previous week but apart from a few five-minute-long sprinkles [enough to turn the audience viewing areas into mud pits] the day was cloudless and bright. Ely Guerra and her guitar took the stage and she delivered a set which rivaled Morrison’s in integrity. Like Kaarl she was wise enough to let her songs speak for themselves while her singing and playing were shockingly direct and potent. The overflow crowd went bananas over her every hanging word.

Goyo, also known as Gloria “Goyo” Martinez hit the stage with an entourage which included a horn section and dancers and she put them to great use as they shimmied through a set of dance pop heavy on the beat. It was hard to focus on what was going on onstage, what with the dancers, Goyo’s free flowing torrents of hair, Goyo herself, and the horn section and back up singers constantly moving in a rhythmic swirl. It was also insanely thrilling, catchy, and just a disturbingly athletic.

It was time for DJ/comedian Silvereo who had played the smaller DJ stage the night before. I had made it a point to miss his Saturday night set, but because of another cancellation he filled in on one of the bigger stages and I couldn’t escape. Appropriately making his entrance via a Porto-Potty which the stagehands wheeled onstage, this time he didn’t seem to be nearly as inflammatory as he was in previous years [he didn’t seem to be yelling at the rowdy crowds, “FUCK YOU!!!!” in Spanish] yet he elicited the same reaction; lots of screams and lots of cups and half full beer cans thrown at him. [The onslaught was so constant that stagehands had wisely installed a mesh screen in front of the stage while photographers had to shoot from the sides.].  Granted there’s nothing quite like seeing a senior citizen in a ratty toupee, dressed in sequined red cocktail pajamas pumping his body to a hardcore club beat while dollar signs flash behind him. Oddly enough I watched much of Silvereo’s set with an eighty-year-old grandmother who giggled non-stop which embarrassed me a bit. I did manage to get far away from the stage once Silvereo started doing what is now his traditional striptease [it’s a sight that can’t be unseen] while unwittingly stumbling into another chaotic melee for the closer of the fest. Lord “Lordy” invaded the Ruido stage and filled the air with club beats designed to elicit old school erections [among the samples in his mini set was “Walk this Way” by Aerosmith and the Storm Trooper’s march from “Star Wars”] before Louis “Be Real” Freese of Cypress Hill got on and promptly got off. As he puffed on a blunt the size of a stogie, clouds of marijuana smoke filled the air [you would think he had a fog machine blowing  the stuff out.] Freese ignored the fact that apart from his DJ he was all by himself onstage [Senen Reyes was reportedly sick] but that didn’t stop him from throwing a party with the overflow crowd.

That Freese closed out the 2022 edition of Ruido Fest on a high note is putting it lightly. I still didn’t care that I knew nothing of what was sung, but like before, I can say I had the time of my life.

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