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Julieta Venegas and Los Abandoned After a weekend of visiting a plethora of video game retailers and driving Tara around the peninsula, i dragged V away from her new Animal Crossing-esque obsession Viva Piñata and drove her up to the Fillmore to see one of her rock en español heroes, Julieta Venegas. We arrived in time for a quick dinner at an Indian place a few blocks from Geary and Fillmore, then walked down and entered the venue during the closing moments of openers Los Abandoned. From the two minutes i watched them, they struck me as a bilingual version of Letters to Cleo. I was a bit worried about my attire, having worn my new Nike Mexico tracktop. Luckily no one gave the gringo any guff. We took up a spot about 20 yards from the stage and waited until Julieta and her band emerged around 8:50pm. The first thing that struck me was that Julieta looks a lot better in person than in photos. Sort of like a skinnier version of Salma Hayek. But my chauvinistic assessments aside, she put on an entertaining set. I'm not a huge fan, and prefer the more experimental leanings of artists like Ely Guerra and Cafe Tacuba than more traditional Latin music like Juanes and Julieta. That said, she did well to bring energy and excitement to the performance. Her stage setup bore two circular screens on the back wall, on which videos were projected for each song. The title track from her new album Limón y Sal was accompanied by a "Beauty and the Beast" tale in silent-film format starring Venegas herself. I recognized a few songs from her last album Sí as that was a mainstay in Veronica's rotation in 2004. During the encore V and i partook in a Fillmore tradition, enjoying an apple from the complimentary bushel always greeting Fillmore visitors at the door. The Fillmore is my favorite of all SF venues, an excellent blend of large, intimate, past and present. All in all an enjoyable show, not exactly my cup of tea but by no means a waste of a Sunday evening either.
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