Review: Bad Bunny rides a horse, rocks the house during huge Bay Area show
Bad Bunny performed two sold-out Most Wanted Tour concerts at Chase Center in San Francisco over the weekend.
A music star has to be pretty confident in one’s ability to move tickets in order to advertise a tour with the caveat: “If you’re not a real fan, don’t come.”
Fortunately, Bad Bunny ranks as one of the very biggest stars on the planet and, as such, moving tickets isn’t a problem for this Puerto Rican rapper. So, despite shooing away all the non-real fans, the Bunny man was still able to fill the Chase Center in San Francisco to capacity for two nights, Friday and Saturday (March 1-2), over the weekend.
On the second night, the 29-year-old “King of Latin Trap” would delight his loyal fanbase with a fiery, action-packed multiset show that ran almost exactly two hours and included some three dozen songs.
The fans seemed to know every single number — including every single word of every single lyric — by heart, which is a testament to just how much time Bad Bunny’s listeners devote to his music on a yearly basis. He’s ranked as the most-streamed artist in the world on Spotify in two of the last three years — taking the top prize in 2021 and 2022, then falling to second, just behind Taylor Swift, in 2023.
The show was performed in-the-round, with the action taking place on the arena floor and seating for fans on all sides. There were actually two semi-circle stages in use — one placed at each side of the arena floor — with a standing-room section for fans between the two.
The concert kicked off in dramatic fashion as the Philharmonic Orchestra Project, under the direction of conductor Carlitos Lopez (a Latin Grammy Award in the best Christian album category), took over one of the two stages and nicely set the mood for what was to come. Minutes later, Bad Bunny — whose real name is Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio — took the other stage and The Most Wanted Tour was off to the races.
He stuck mainly to his latest (and fifth overall) solo studio album — last year’s “Nadie Sabe Lo Que Va a Pasar Mañana” (translation: Nobody knows what will happen tomorrow) — during the first segment of the show, delighting fans with such selections as “Nadie Sabe,” “Hibiki,” “Fina” and “Monaco.”
There was much razzmatazz on display, as Bad Bunny displayed his showed off his lyrical prowess in the midst of an ever-changing swirl of visual stimuli, which included, but was certainly not limited to, 18 high-energy dancers, minor pyrotechnics, major laser displays and a floating skybridge that allowed the star to move between the two stages.
Oh, did we mention the horse? Yeah, following one of the breaks in the action, Bad Bunny rode into view on the back of a horse — mimicking, in a much safer fashion, the illustrated Wild West/cowboy scene found on the album cover of “Nadie Sabe Lo Que Va a Pasar Mañana.” His fans have also greatly embraced the whole Western motif, with a huge number of them showing up for Saturday’s concert in cowboy hats.
The Western theme also factored into one of coolest special effects of the nights, as fans were given boot-shaped plastic necklaces (complete with spurs!) as they walked into the venue. Those boots then pulsed with a variety of lights, at opportune times during the concert, to provide a dizzying light display throughout the crowd. We’re not talking about simple blinking (although that happened as well), but rather elaborately choreographed and staged light shows that absolutely boggled the mind.
After slowing the party down for a bit, taking a seat atop a piano while a sole accompanist handled the keys during a segment that included a really nice version of “Gracias por Nada,” Bad Bunny was back in full fiesta mode and drove the show to a close with such memorable numbers as “La Jumpa” and “Me Porto Bonito.”
It was a strong finish to what had been a massive week for live music in the Bay Area, with the other top shows being Madonna’s two nights at Chase Center on Feb. 27-28 and Nicki Minaj’s tour opener at Oakland Arena on March 1.
