RAUW ALEJANDRO
Allstate Arena
Rosemont, IL
4/5/2023
By: Kookiee
Photos by Keeton Robinson
A month after finishing his Vice Versa tour in June 2022, experimental reggaeton artist Rauw Alejandro posted a video on Instagram of him and his entourage morphing into aliens and their car transforming into a spaceship while making their way to Saturn to work on his next album along with the caption under his post to his fans that he will be seeing them very soon. The
rollout for Rauw’s third studio album ‘Saturno’ allowed fans to get a glimpse with out of this world visuals as well as describing the album’s sound of reggaeton, Mami bass freestyle, electronic and afrobeat before dropping on November 11, 2022. The Saturno World Tour 2023 was announced three weeks later with a trailer for the tour- Rauw was called into action to fight off aliens from Saturn after being informed that they were out of control. During the trailer, Rauw made a special call for backup on this 57 show operation- America’s Best Dance Crewseason 1 winners; Jabbawockeez.
On April 5th, the ‘Saturno’ tour finally landed at the AllState arena where many fans of all ages came dressed to impress. Following the intergalactic theme, many are seen in futurism fashion[1]metallic pants, illuminating glasses, marbled printed dresses with makeup and hairstyles to match. Although the show was supposed to start at 8PM, the crowd was given time to make their way to their seats and by 9PM, imitating Rauw’s “Deca’ a las Vegas (interlude)”, the women announcer greeted everyone with a playlist to get the night started. Songs like “The Rhythm of the Night” by Corona and Plan B’s “Guatauba” were very fitting for the vibe of this tour and had the arena moving. By 9:20PM, the woman announcer warned the crowd on the last call for seating as the mission was about to start in 5 minutes.
Above the stage are visuals that help carry out the story of the space expedition that Rauw Alejandro takes his fans, starting with him as an alien with the intro “Saturno” from his album playing in the background. Meanwhile his dancers, who are dressed in black and wearing space helmets, back flipping all across the stage. Alejandro makes his appearance with his dancers,
rising from center stage as the song transitions to “Punto 40 ”. The crowd loudly welcomed the Puerto Rican space traveler with his black alien glasses and shiny custom saturn mic. “Buenas noche, Chicago!” he acknowledged before getting into the first of many dance numbers of the night.
A few songs into the concert, Alejandro took a moment to thank his fans for their support and asked the question “Who is proud to be Latino?” which received a roaring response- the pride of being latino was another theme that was represented throughout the night. “Music is the best medicine for the soul”, Alejandro added to his speech and called for his fans to “forget all your
problems tonight”.
The whole night, Rauw and his dancers gave high level performances through and through, showcasing their pop locking, break dancing and even gave homages by incorporating Lil Uzi’s I Just Wanna Rock dance as well as Micheal Jackson’s antigravity lean into their choreography. Growing up with a strong passion for dancing, Alejandro showed a moment of true dancer
professionalism while performing “Verde Menta” when he couldn’t complete a kip-up. As Alejandro laid on the floor, one of his dancers reached out to help him up but instead, Alejandro continued performing on the floor and his dancer helped with playing off the error with him and both jumped back into the choreography as if nothing happened.
Durning “La Old Skul”, ladies’ man Rauw wanted to see who in the audience could perreo, a style of dance associated with reggaeton, with him. He picked a fan from one side of the stage who, to his surprise, ended up being twins and counted down to perrear together. On the other side, he picked another fan and he made sure everyone around her opened up to give her space,
told them to record her for the memories and repeated the same countdown.
Immediately after, Rauw brings out a special guest, rising artist Chris Palace, to help perform “Gatas”. Alejandro informed the crowd that this was Palace’s first time in Chicago, then he turned to Palace and enlightened him that Chicago has the best crowd. Chris Palace was then given the stage to perform his own song “BELLAQUE?”.
22 songs later, at the end of performing “Party”, Rauw is seen being lowered and the screen above the stage starts to glitch and informs the arena to proceed with caution. The crowd yells in excitement when they see who approaches onto the stage; the masked dance group, The Jabbawockeez. Everyone watched in amazement and surrealness as the Jabbawockeez performed
mind-blowing dance moves to different genres of music. The Latin superstar later joined the Jabbas and executed a dance number along with lasers and transformed into a human cannon. Back on the screen read that the Saturn aliens were going to put an end to the Jabbawockeez and trap Rauw.
Ultimately, our space ranger is captured and abducted. A blue beam comes down and Rauw is floating up towards the UFO all while singing to a very sentimental song “Lejos Del Cielo”. But the energy is brought right back once he hits the stage with “Dejau’”. He took this time to pick out pairs of fans from the crowd to come up on stage to perrear. Alejandro welcomed every fan
who got picked and asked them for ethnicity- majority on stage were Mexicans, “Mexico vs Mexico” he declared. Each pair took a corner and Rauw counted down and played “Dejau’” again for his fans to perrear to. The crowd went crazy and showed their support for the participants.
Before the night came to an end, Rauw Alejandro couldn’t leave without mentioning the love of his life, Rosalia and performing their song “Besos” for the first time in Chicago. As well as performing the song that changed his life “Todo de Ti”. Of course, Alejandro had to remind his fans from where he’s from with “ De Carolina” and a final performance with an encore of
“Punto 40”. The woman announcer comes back and thanks the fans for visiting and hopes to see the audience again on the next mission.
Being only the 11th stop of the Saturno World Tour, Rauw Alejandro fans still have a chance to catch this almost 40 song setlist concert and be part of the mission before his last stop on October 3rd, 2023. Tickets and tour list can be found on rauwalejandro.com and as Rauw Alejandro mentioned on twitter, be on the lookout for the sequel to Saturno dropping July 2023.
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