Enrique Iglesias's Euphoria Tour
With Pitbull and Prince Royce
American Airlines Arena
Saturday, October 22, 2011
Better Than: Penis talk and private snapshots.
The first thing to note about last night's bachata, hip-hop, and Latin pop love-fest starring Enrique Igleasias, Pitbull, and Prince Royce is that these dudes fucking love Miami.
Throughout the packed show at American Airlines Arena, each of them professed his devotion to the 305 at least once every five minutes. And at least one said it while crying on his knees before the audience in the most overly intense display of audience appreciation ever. I mean, we knew Enrique Inglesias was a suave, hypersexualized Casanova. But we had no idea he was that... intense.
But the show actually started on a pretty mellow note with bachatero Prince Royce being as adorable and cuddly and Fedora-wearing as usual. The bilingual vocalist and guitar player has amassed a pretty impassioned following, especially considering he's a relative newcomer on the scene. It was obvious that some people came to the concert specifically for this set; namely, the groups of guys wearing identical Fedoras and singing every line of "Corazon Sin Cara" and "Standy By Me" while performing complicated dance moves that totally blocked our view.
Luckily, they quickly took a seat for Pitbull who performed his usual rendition of bass-heavy party anthems punctuated by random uncontrollable outbursts of "Dale!" "Culo!" "Three oh fiveee!" and "Ayooo!" With no backup dancers (except during a single song) and wearing just a funeral-black suit and dark shades, he managed to salsa all over the stage, work up a massive sweat, and get the whole place bumping like it was Ladies Night at Bongos.
Neyer came out for "Tonight" in a culo-centric outfit. (No really, it was some kind of shiny getup that covered only one butt cheek.) The crowd went insane and then Pitbull wiped his drenched face with a handkerchief, throwing it into the crowd so that someone could cherish his perspiration forever. He ended his set by telling everyone that many of the people who know him as Pitbull, Mr. 305, or Mr. Worldwide (names he has previously selected for himself) are comemierdas. And that his true identity is Armando, known only to the people of Miami. Pitbull, please don't ever change.
Before the Enrique Iglesias set, there was a long intermission during which some guy from the audience took off his shirt and led a dance-off and a who-has-better-abs contest in his section. He was challenged by an usher on the other side of the arena who moonwalked and broke into some serious Michael Jackson moves. We were highly impressed by this amateur portion of the evening and would like to nominate Shirtless Dude and Awesome Usher as future backup dancers for Armando.
Finally, Enrique Iglesias emerged from the shadows wearing a tattered baseball cap and t-shirt as though he'd just come back from chopping wood in the forest whilst rescuing baby kittens from trees. "This is my hometown, so it's going to be good," he said, while holding the microphone in a manner that suggested he was about to make out with it.
Then, all of this happened over the course of an hour: Enrique Iglesias dropped down on his knees in tears and said he was nervous because his mike wasn't working properly but "you guys just made it fucking amazing." He described Miami as the "shit of the shit of the shit of the shit." He took shots of what appeared to be either tequila or whiskey, right before welcoming surprise guests Wisin y Yandel.
He popped up on another stage where he helped a middle-aged woman climb up. He embraced her, moved her hands onto his ass, and then made out with her in between songs. He told everyone to come down from the nose-bleeds and when security objected, shouted, "Security, let Miami do whatever the fuck they want!" And then he ended things with a call and response of "Ole! Ole! Ole!" before running and skipping into the dark beneath an ocean of confetti.
Uh, yeah ... Miami is exactly where Enrique Iglesias belongs.
Follow Crossfade on Facebook and Twitter @Crossfade_SFL.