Bésame Mucho, the Spanish-language music fest coming to Austin, hosts generations of stars

Editor's note: This story has been updated to remove references to musical artists who are no longer scheduled to perform at the Bésame Mucho festival.

A large chunk of Mexican music history will arrive in town on March 2.

More than 90 Spanish-language — mostly Mexican — music stars will perform at the one-day Bésame Mucho festival at the Circuit of the Americas. The performers will include artists from Ramón Ayala to Belanova.

The Bésame concept began in Los Angeles two years ago. Austin is its first expansion. Tickets for the festival are available online and start at $399.

From four stages — pop, banda, rock and classics (mostly norteño) — festivalgoers will have to rush between sets to catch the tight schedule.

Here are three musical traditions they can catch.

Norteño from the grandfather onward

The norteño tradition, at its base a conjunction of the German-introduced accordion and the ranchera style, is arguably the most emblematic form of Mexican music north of the border. The genre spread binationally during the second half of the 20th century, far beyond Mexico’s northern states. Bésame's "Las Clásicas" stage will showcase generations of norteño heavyweights.

He plays sitting these days, but 78-year-old Ramón Ayala will receive the attention merited to “the accordion king” on festival day. The band leader helped deliver the Texan and northern Mexican conjunto tradition to the broader Mexican market, first as a young man in Los Relámpagos in the 1960s and later with his Bravos. Ayala has used a soft voice to convey coquetry, tragedy and absolution. His love songs have whisked boot pairs along kitchen and wedding hall floors for generations.

A family band active since its members' early adolescence six decades ago, Los Tigres del Norte aren't just a peg in the timeline of fame. They are, in this world, the peg. The band of brothers glued the narcocorrido — songs written about the country's drug trade — to the cross of northern Mexico's lyrical tradition and kept a keen interest in the stories of the Mexican diaspora in the United States (Los Tigres' early success came in California). Song "La Jaula de Oro" tells of a parent's devastated witness to their child's assimilation. "Somos Más Americanos" is a popular rejection of the Anglo claim to the term "American." Expect some of the most fervent sing-alongs.

Bronco added grupero soapiness to norteño music in the ’80s (and, conversely, norteño cowboy bravado to grupero). By the ’90s, its members kept their bronzed chests open-aired through their unbuttoned uniforms and stared out into the open so well that it appeared an attempt to titillate the waning century back to life. The band added synth riffs to this and that, and kept the vocals buttery. Singer Juan Guadalupe Esparza's innovative cadence continues to abound an intimate confessionalism. The similar Banda Machos and Mi Banda El Méxicano, who work in the heavily danceable banda-quebradita style, will perform on the "Beso" stage.

One of Bésame’s youngest stars, Grupo Frontera, represents a recent U.S. contribution to the genre. More often referenced with the broader, increasingly common description of “música regional,” Grupo Frontera has come of age in the music world of collaborations. They've recorded with Peso Pluma, Carín León and Bad Bunny. Like other recent American-formed groups, their music often merges with urbano-pop and other Latin styles, but they are corrido artists influenced by the norteño tradition. And they're exposing Spanish-language music to the largest crowds yet. The group is the most Spotify-streamed at the festival. They draw approximately 35 million monthly listeners.

Through ballads and rock, Mexico's traditional of power vocalists

Contrary to the heavy male lineups on the other stages, the Te gusta el Pop? Stage will showcase a tradition of Mexican woman vocalists.

Rock ballads are power pop for Alejandra Guzmán. Since the ’90s, her songs, like "Hacer el Amor Con Otro" and "Eternamente Bella," have flung sexuality and provocation, tearing at the men (lovers) who don't serve for nothing.

Gloria Trevi broke into Mexico’s pop scene in the ’90s with sexually charged songs reminiscent of Madonna. Her career stumbled when she was imprisoned for rape, kidnapping and corruption of minors in 2000, but jolted back to life after she was acquitted four years later (she was again accused in December 2023 of sexual assault, allegations that she has denied). Her ballads beckon sways, jolts and tears; they’re full of tempo changes and orchestral climaxes. As great love singers do, she knows when to call for vengeance and when for mercy. Its made her a stadium-filler in Mexico and in the States. As she predicted in her 2005 hit “Todos Me Miran”: "And everyone looks at me, looks at me, looks at me. / Some with envy / but in the end, in the end, / everyone will love me.” 

A central exponent of Mexico’s early 2000s electropop and soft-rock, Belanova is pained, teenage angst. Singer Denisse Guerrero’s yearning cries match the indoor-shades and bright colors of their early look. Add a funny-shaped bass guitar and the keytar, and you have a show.

The (mostly) Mexican rock boom

The Rockero stage’s headliners are not exclusively Mexican (we see you, Juanes), but the many who are will highlight the genre’s national evolution from American import into something distinctively hybridized.

El Tri introduced the blues and hard rock traditions, as well as brazen provocation, to Mexico’s baby boomers in the 1960s. The band is still led by frontman Alex Lora’s raspy voice and flowing curls, and continues to take set breaks to wave the green-white-and-red. (El Tri was first slated for the rock stage but was later moved to the "Las Clásicas" stage. The 1970s pop-rock balladeers Los Freddys, who occupied a parallel universe to El Tri, will also appear there.)

Debuting in 1988 with a titular album that was enough goth, emo and synth to be called post-punk, Caifanes grabbed at the heart of the Latin American New Wave. In their 20s, the group dressed like The Cure, but their color evolved with the 1990s, with different albums fusing elements of tropical, Mexican folkloric and prog rock.

The anti-authority of the 1990s might be best represented by the overtly political Molotov. As its name suggests, the metal group has sought explosivity, rapping and grunting behind clanging bass lines. They curse the politician, the greedy, the self-hating and the imperial. Controversially, they’ll use all types of slurs to make their point.

Arguably the most eclectic of Mexico’s rock products, Café Tacvba has skirted the lines of genre in their 35 years together. Their attitude and politics grew from the alternativeness of their generation’s rock scene, but their sound pulled ambitiously from Latin America’s deep breadth — danzón, son, ranchera and boleros, to name a few. Their 1994 "Re" album, an act of soldering and miscegenation truer than any nationalism, is the lust of music nerds.

The Bésame Mucho festival will take place on March 2 at the Circuit of the Americas. A limited number of tickets are available at besamemuchofestival.com. Tickets can also be found through third-party vendors.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Bésame Mucho fest brings generations of Latin American stars to Austin