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By Benjamin Ortiz, Special to the Tribune
Section: Tempo
Date: Monday, November 26, 2007


After offering everything from floor-stomping punk ska to a cappella folk ballads to intricately textured alt-rock arrangements, Cafe Tacuba closed its Friday show at the Aragon with playful pizazz in a galloping disco line-dance combo of the hokey pokey, the Macarena and the Karate Kid.
Lead singer Ruben Albarran easily switched hats — from bowler hat to pro wrestling mask to straw sombrero — like the band bounces from song to song across musical idioms. With a set that spanned the group’s 18-year career, the critically acclaimed rock en español icons — touring behind its latest record, “Sino” — concocted a menu of sounds and sources.
The new lineup is strictly electric, though — no folkloric strings or percussion. But the packed Aragon crowd of predominantly Mexican twentysomethings kept the band doling out classics, especially when Los Tacubos came back for a generous, hour-plus encore.
“We’re here to serve you,” Albarran said with a winning smile, asking the audience for requests. Then, with his signature street-Mex indio-punk vocals, he belted out what became a duet, as the crowd echoed every word.
Despite the more rock-leaning setup, Cafe Tacuba’s original Mexico City folkways came across, for example, with punchy ranchera traces in “De Acuerdo.”
Lyrically, Albarran clarifies the group’s disdain for strict musical categories: “You define rock or electronica, reggaeton or hip-hop on what the radio imposes.”
“El Outsider” embraced Tacuba’s unique transnational identity.
Openers Austin TV, also from Mexico City, took the stage in matching knickers, sneakers and pro wrestling masks, and said that “race and face don’t matter [because] music sometimes says what words can’t,” as they laid down art-rock instrumentals.
Absolutely nothing about the opener suggested Mexico except for the band speaking Spanish. Such is the culturally unbounded reality of Mex rockeros, who still claim “pais y raiz” (“country and roots”), as Austin TV put it.

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