Pop : The Twin Poles of Mexican Rock

Bands representing the two most significant strains in contemporary Mexican rock each won over a near-capacity crowd on Friday at the Hollywood Palladium, suggesting there is room for both in the evolving “Rock en espanol” scene.

Even before Maldita Vecindad y los Hijos del Quinto Patio (“Damned Neighborhood and the Sons of the Tenement”) began the first song, youths jumped on stage, unfurling large Mexican flags and prompting shouts of “Viva Mexico” from an audience dominated by young Mexico City natives.

Maldita, whose sound has been aptly described as “ska/cha-cha” and “mambo-funk,” is arguably the most original band on the scene. Lead singer Roco pummeled the air with his fists as he sang and rapped his way through such socially conscious songs as “Apa non,” a raw, dissonant rap about police abuse in Mexico City. Despite its all-Spanish lyrics, the band has enough individuality and fire to deserve a following in the English-speaking alternative rock scene.

But most of the fans came to see Caifanes, Mexico’s most commercially successful rock band. As it turned out, they were lucky to see the group at all. Due to visa problems, Caifanes (a Mexico City slang term for a high-style hipster) didn’t arrive at LAX until Maldita was already on stage.

The quintet’s sound and themes represent the other side of Mexican rock: borrowed rock grooves (think of the Cure sprinkled with some Mexican pop rhythms) brightened only by lead singer Saul Hernandez’s poetic, dreamlike lyrics expressing the dark romanticism in the Mexican soul.