“I’m finally 21, b—!”
Inside Crypto.com Arena on Saturday night, the chart-topping regional Mexican band Eslabón Armado had just kicked off its biggest headlining show in Los Angeles.
Pedro Tovar, lead singer and songwriter behind the Northern California group’s No. 1 single with Peso Pluma, “Ella Baila Sola,” proudly raised a red Solo cup in his own honor; the concert doubled as his birthday bash, where nearly 20,000 fans assembled to toast him for his first (legal) drink.
A mariachi band played “Las Mañanitas” as a brigade of young fans marched onstage bearing hefty bouquets of roses in red, blue, white and gold. Tovar’s mother and band manager, Nelly, hurled dozens of free shirts into the crowd with the stamina of a Dodgers ace pitcher.
“It’s like my quinceañera!” Tovar exclaimed.
And yet it was a head-scratcher of an evening for regional Mexican music buffs in Los Angeles — many of whom had to pick between seeing Eslabón Armado and corridos tumbados act Fuerza Regida, which hosted its own rager at the BMO Stadium less than 10 minutes away. Eslabón Armado fans, however, harbored no regrets.
“It was an easy choice,” said Stephanie, 21, who traveled from Maryland to attend the show with her cousin Jeanine. “I’ve been following them since 2019. They capture every emotion for me — whether you’re happy, drunk, sad, confused. They have it all.”
Members of the band, including lead singer JOP were detained by LAPD after their show at BMO Stadium on Sunday morning
The scene in the arena was a bombastic, jovial display of Mexican pride. Addressing the crowd endearingly as “raza,” Tovar — with his younger brother Brian on bass, Damian Pacheco on the requinto and Ulises González on acoustic guitar — rollicked between frisky banda numbers and wistful sierreño ballads with the help of a brass and percussion ensemble, all dressed smartly in silver blazers. Trombonist Joey Calderon melded the occasional jazz solo into the melodies like a careless whisper.
But years before they crowned the Billboard Global 200, Eslabón Armado cornered the market on sad bois (gender neutral) with their 2020 record, “Tu Veneno Mortal.” Their melodrama crescendoed in the following LPs “Vibras de Noche” and “Corta Venas” — an appropriately titled collection of, metaphorically speaking, wrist-cutting anthems that traversed matters of heartbreak, yearning and mishaps over social media.
Guest appearances from fellow “sad sierreño” artists Ivan Cornejo and Danny Lux fortified the band’s paisa emo cred on Saturday, wooing the tatted cowgirls in the crowd with songs like “Jugaste y Sufrí” and “La Curiosidad.” Several couples around me took these moments to share torrid, drunken kisses in the shadows; floating across the backdrop was a red bleeding heart enclosing the band’s name.
While other male acts perform songs extolling the archetypal buchonas and high rollers of regional Mexican lore, Eslabón Armado is, indisputably, for lovers.
Next to the bar, I met Angel, 23, a die-hard fan who brought his girlfriend, Elen, to see the band for the first time. Although he was most excited to hear the 2020 song “Con Tus Besos,” she approached the show with a touch of skepticism. Her opinion shifted after Pedro spoke to the crowd about lifting his family out of poverty with the songs he wrote.
“To be honest I prefer older music, but I like how much they emphasize the importance of family,” Elen said. “To see [Pedro]’s mom up there with him was sweet. Family is everything.”
And at an Eslabón Armado show, I learned that everyone there was family, in a sense.
“¡Arriba las chicas borrachas … las trabajadores … los marijuanos!” shouted Tovar. Be it the drunk girls, the workers or the stoners — hell, even the emotionally stunted tóxicos among us, as their song “Soy Tóxico” goes — anyone can find a warm, welcoming home in their music.
“It wasn’t cool to be Hispanic when I was growing up,” said Jocelyn Rivera, 23, who counted the Eslabón Armado show as her first regional Mexican concert. “Everything back then was about, like, Justin Bieber. It’s amazing to see a band like this at Crypto, or like seeing Bad Bunny at SoFi last year. I feel very proud that we’re getting so much recognition.”
Another concertgoer Eddie Cruz, 27, agreed. “I’m just very happy to see these bilingual, next-generation Mexican regional artists expand and transform this genre,” he said.
