Partying was the only option on Thursday night at Crypto.com Arena. Every person in the fully packed stadium knew what they were getting into on night one of the Trilogy tour, which brought Latin crossover titans Ricky Martin, Enrique Iglesias and Pitbull to the downtown L.A. stage for two nights of base-throbbing, fist-pumping raging.
The Trilogy tour is not a hard sell. With a combined 77,116,452 monthly listeners on Spotify, five Grammys, 10 Latin Grammys and a level 5 billion on the heartthrob heat scale, the three acts comprising the tour could, and have, done gangbusters individually and on dual headlining tours. So much so that the tour has mostly sold out across the U.S., leading to a second leg starting up in 2024.
With four stages representing the past and present of Latin music, here are some of our favorite sets from the one-day festival at Dodger Stadium.
Even with a rotating lineup, the show is relentlessly raucous, never letting up on the multi-generational crowd that ranged from elementary-aged kids to doñas draped in rebozos. Delia Martín, a 63-year-old from Westchester, was there with four family members, excited for the lineup. “All of them have their individual gifts,” she said.
For Gio Chavez, a 45-year-old sales manager from Riverside, it was his daughter who brought him there. “She’s like, ‘Dad, we have to come to this show,’ and here I am, full board,” said Chavez, gesturing to the large sheet brandishing Pitbull’s face surrounded by hearts that he was wearing as a cape.
On Thursday, Boricua icon Ricky Martin kicked things off, powering full-heartedly through hits like “Maria,” “She Bangs” and “Vuelve,” which produced such a yearning scream that hundreds of exes out in the universe must have felt a sudden heat in their chest.
It’s no shock that Martin, who joined the Latin boy band Menudo at age 12, commands the stage and crowd with an ease and electricity that feels marrow-deep — an integral muscle of his very self. Despite a year embroiled in several lawsuits over sexual assault allegations, Martin was as vigorous as ever.
His set rocketed me back in time to the Latin Explosion of the late ‘90s and early aughts. And how could it not as Martin performed “The Cup of Life,” the World Cup anthem that launched a boom in Latin crossover music after the singer’s famously culture-shifting Grammy’s performance in 1999. And you’d think after hearing “Livin’ la Vida Loca” no less than 10,000 times in the summer of ‘99 it wouldn’t hit as hard, but you’d be wrong. It’s easy to see how Martin’s stage presence and talent sent the music industry into a tizzy that still resonates to this day.
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The sensuality and vibrance of Martin’s set turned out to be a primer for the all-out visual and sonic freakout that drenched every corner of the Crypto in “dale’s.” I counted 23 “dale’s” during Pitbull’s balls-to-the-wall set, which also included his bangers “Timber,” “I Know You Want Me (Calle Ocho)” and “Hotel Room Service.” Thankfully, his fans came prepared to party with Mr. Worldwide — some more than others.
“Bro, I’m about to mess this concert up. I’m about to go on the stage and be Pitbull,” said Sophia Ruiz, a 19-year-old veterinary student who works at her family bakery, Chelo’s Panaderia in Huntington Beach. She, along with two friends, came dressed as Pitbull, nude skull caps and drawn-on goatees.
“I think everyone, if they like Pitbull, they’re also Pitbull. We are one,” she said.
“We have met other Pitbulls tonight, and immediately felt like family,” said Samantha Valdez, a nursing student also dressed as Pitbull. “It doesn’t matter where you come from. If you love Pitbull you have an instant connection with that person.”
In total, I met seven Pitbullinas. The Miami-born singer, entrepreneur and education ambassador has a remarkable hold over his fans, one that elicits veneration. After his set, I fully understood why. He has molded himself into a mix of megachurch pastor and motivational speaker, rapping about taking shots and scoring hotties, while taking moments to speak to his disciples about his commitment to education and following your dreams.
For many Angelenos, the Cuban treasure cultivated community and provided a taste of home.
“There was a moment, we looked at each other, we’re dressed like him right now, and we said, ‘Are we in a cult?’ ” said Carly Kaplan, a 29-year-old social media specialist also fully decked out as Pitbull along with her friend, Tarreyn Van Slyke, also a social media specialist.
“There’s moments where it’s like a positivity conference or something, like a self-help seminar,” Van Slyke told me. “He’s a showman. He clearly loves what he’s doing. He gave the people what they wanted.”
Closing out the rollicking affair was Enrique Iglesias, who felt subdued in comparison to his co-headliners but only because he had no backup dancers, choreography or outfit changes, whereas his tour mates had an abundance of all three. Even so, the crowd was with him, screaming along to “Bailamos,” “I Like It,” “Escape” and “Súbeme la radio.”
It’s proof you don’t need a lot of frills to get the crowd going, which was true about 27 years ago when I saw Iglesias in concert at the San Diego Sports Arena for my very first concert. It was the first time I’ve ever seen girls completely lose their mind over a guy in a basic white tee rasping melodically about experiencias religiosas, and I’ve never forgotten it.
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Across two stages — a larger one and a smaller, warmly lighted one closer to the back of the arena — he moved through the crowd to cover as much arena space as physically possible, finding rails to climb and shaking hands with fans as he sang.
“He brought the crowd up,” said Martín of Iglesias’ set, which she called her favorite.
Videos of Iglesias humping the stage on this tour have been making the rounds on TikTok, but sadly, this stop was only treated to a bit of air thrusting. There were, however, some incredibly intimate duets with his backup singer, enough to raise my eyebrow at the heat it radiated.
“L.A., this is my wife on stage,” Iglesias told the crowd following a performance where he sang on bended knee into her lap and another where they slow-danced tightly, crooning out of the nape of each other’s neck.
The Trilogy tour, in all, was a dizzying, unstoppable force, a celebration of three Latin icons who are hell-bent on getting your hips moving and your throat hoarse from screaming. And bless them for that.
Far from a nostalgia tour (though there were certainly moments of wistfulness), the Trilogy tour was a perfect reminder that decades into life and career, these guys are far from done.
Alex Zaragoza is a television writer and journalist covering culture and identity. Her work has appeared in Vice, NPR, O Magazine and Rolling Stone. She’s written on the series “Primo” and “Lopez v. Lopez.” She writes weekly for De Los.
