House of Music

Rauw Alejandro

SAP Center

San Jose, CA

April 24th, 2022

Photos and Review by Alexander Andrade

When I started my music photography career, it was covering latin music. Something about it just made me feel some type of way and wanted to stay for more. Rauw Alejandro announced “Rauw Arena Tour” which was presented by Elite Media & Marketing and Duars Entertainment. San Jose, CA was listed on his tour dates and happened to be his last stop before tour ending. Once I read that, I knew I had to jump on it. My interest for latin music have been growing since my first cover back in August, 2021 at Golden 1 Center in Sacramento, CA.

From the moment I stepped foot into the venue, around 8:45pm to get my camera gear set up, you could already feel to energy throughout the entire arena. The attendees were already dancing, taking pictures, and video recording. Once the DJ playing latin music before the show started, the volume of the crowd went from 0 to 100 real quick. The type of genre that were played to keep the crowd entertained included Reggaeton and Banda music. I even caught some of the venue employees getting their groove on!

The show started off with an opening act with artist name Joonti, an upcoming Puerto Rican rapper that specializes in the genre Latin Urban and Hip Hop/Rap. I have never heard of his name before, but in my defense, I am still learning about more artists in the Latin community. Joint performed few singles he produced which included Cobarbe, Life, Sentencia, and Baby.

Followed by the act, was a video displayed on a large curtain hanging from the top of the ceiling to the floor of the stage. A video was projected on the curtain which seemed to be a music video of Rauw Alejandro. When the video ended, it then displayed a countdown from 10 and the crowd were counting down with excitement until the time hit zero. The curtains opened up and thats when Rauw Alejandro literally exploded onto the stage!

The artist made connections with his fans by calling out the different counties around the world acknowledging them for being there to help start his career. The crowd chanting and screaming when their hometown were mentioned. He even rouzed up the ladies as he danced his way into their hearts while picking up the thrown underwear on stage and the fans went crazy. After each song, he engaged with his crowd by saying “donde estan las solteras?” which translated to, ” where are the single ladies at?” and the audience roard in response. As he transitioned into his next songs, he had projector in the background that made the audience feel the lyrics as they were sung, understanding the emotions of Rauw while performing.

Rauw teased his audience by playing the next song having them guess the song that was about to play and joined in on que. Towards the ending of the show, he had his dancers help him amp up the fans by having each section high and low to sing his song for him. All you could hear were the lyrics being sung back to him along with screams when their section was next. His stage was one of the highlights of the night with streamers popping off into the audience, light beams circling into every section with every color turning SAP Center into a night club, and confetti exploding at the finale.

In the end, he bowed to his fans along with his dancers and gave one last shoutout to every Latin community giving pure gratefulness for being his fan. As he left backstage, the crowd kept screaming in unison, ” Otra, Otra, Orta! ” which means encore/another; begging for the artist to do another song. As some began to leave and others did not give up hope, he ran back on stage with such passion and joy, the entire arena trembled with screams and audiences running back to their seats to savor this moment of a lifeime that he gave his fans what they wanted. Out of all shows I have covered, I really enjoyed Rauw Alejandro the most. What really made his show stand out was the engagement he did with the crowd and dance choreography. Elite Media and Marketing have done an amazing job putting this event together with Duars Entertainment to make sure everyone had a great time. This concert was definitely not one to miss!

The Rauw Arena Tour is an Elite Media & Marketing @Emm360 production.