Periodically, the Latinx Files will feature a guest writer. This week, we’ve asked contributing music writer Ernesto Lechner to fill in. Catalina García looks a bit worried.
She opens the heavy door of the Belasco theater in downtown Los Angeles to let me in as her band, Monsieur Periné, slowly begins to set up for a sound check. Hours before the show, the club feels sleepy and cavernous. We take a seat in her dressing room backstage, and the singer voices out her anxiety in Spanish marked by a melodious Colombian accent.
“Selling tickets on this tour has been a real challenge,” she said with a sigh, referencing the U.S. leg of the Bolero Apocalíptico tour, which kicked off in Sacramento on May 25 and will conclude in Chicago on June 17.
“I don’t remember it ever being so difficult for us, you know?” At 38, García looks like a ballerina from a classic picture book, the absence of makeup enhancing the delicate features of her face. In conversation, she is witty and incisive, taking the time to reflect as she analyzes the bittersweet ambivalence of Monsieur Periné’s present. “We were just talking about this,” she said, before I get the chance to ask my first question.
“How many Colombian bands have the luxury of touring the U.S.? And I’m not talking about huge pop stars like Juanes, Shakira or Karo.
G. I’m talking about bands . Right now, it’s Aterciopelados, Bomba Estéreo and us.
Anyone else? I think of the staggering amount of talented mu.
