Grupo Cañaveral Tickets

Grupo Cañaveral In Concert

The most pervasive and insistent beat in all Latin America may have originated in Colombia, but the cumbia sound eventually achieved its strongest foothold in Mexico. When Humberto Pabón Olivares and Agustín Teutli Delgado formed Grupo Cañaveral in 1995, they hoped to reanimate their country's then-languishing style of cumbia. More than two decades later, Grupo Cañaveral is still making audiences dance and smile with their constantly evolving cumbia concoctions.

Humberto Pabón's up-front percussion and joyous cries of "huipipi!" draw listeners into a carnival of light and sound that has become more elaborate over the years. Grupo Cañaveral's hits — including "Tiene Espinas el Rosal" (The Rose Has Thorns), "Echarme al Olvido" (Let Me Forget), and "No Te Voy a Perdonar" (I Will Not Forgive You) — are constantly being adapted for new audiences. The group had earned three gold records by 1998, while later recordings reached platinum and diamond numbers.

Cañaveral began a new chapter in 2010, when Humberto's son Emir — who'd previously worked with Wilfrido Vargas and Grupo Mayor — began fronting the band for the release of "Hui Pi Pi." His brother Dayron also plays tambor alegre, the "happy drum," with the band. Humberto remains, of course, an avuncular reminder of Cañaveral's deep cumbia roots.

The group hit new heights in 2017 with the release of Fiesta Total, which featured guest artists Los Tucanes de Tijuana, Los Claxons, Valentino, Lucero, and Matute. Cañaveral's musical visitors joined in on many of the band's hits and led cumbia versions of their own tracks. The album kicked off a new era of Cañaveral-style cumbia hybrids that included forays into tropical, urban, salsa, merengue, and reggaeton rhythms.

The 11-piece band now delivers the most dynamic, happiest, and stunningly visual stage show of its career, complete with dancers and an elaborate light show. As Humberto Pabón likes to point out, it's not as though cumbia's merely the latest musical trend. It has been part of Colombian folklore for centuries and, while other styles may come and go, cumbia abides. "You are going to dance," he often says, "and what you ask for most is cumbia."