Spain’s Naranjo Steals Show at Reventon Festival

Ready for a shock?

The act that stole the show during Saturday’s Reventon Super Estrella festival at the Arrowhead Pond in Anaheim wasn’t Mexico’s Jaguares, one of the best rock en espan~ol bands around.

And it wasn’t Son by Four, although the soulful quartet currently has a platinum album and hit singles on the Latin and mainstream U.S. pop charts.

Even more surprising at the event sponsored by the Super Estrella radio station, KSSE-FM (97.5): This spotlight-grabbing artist didn’t even “sing.”

All she had to do was walk on stage and lip-sync her way through a few of her recordings. Still, she left no doubt that she is a star in the making.

Meet Monica Naranjo, a brooding disco diva with an aggressively androgynous look and a rebellious, avant-garde attitude. Already a sensation in her native Spain, Naranjo, 25, mesmerized the capacity audience with her melodramatic vocals and the over-the-top grit of her new album.

Naranjo’s performance was so energetic and winning that its brevity left the audience disappointed. Backstage after her set, she said she regretted not being able to bring her band with her to sing live--but said it was a matter of budget. She said she plans to return to Southern California before the end of the year.

She wasn’t the only act lip-syncing Saturday. However, none of the others--whether singing live or not--offered as flashy a spectacle as Naranjo did.

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Jaguares, among the acts that did perform live, came in a close second in terms of impact, replacing flash with substance. Unfortunately, the Mexican group (undoubtedly the most artistically weighty of the evening’s attractions) was the festival’s opener.

Led by the mystical persona of singer Saul Hernandez, the band is already a rock en espan~ol legend, but that doesn’t mean it takes its status for granted. Despite its legacy, the band still performs with rare grace and commitment.

The band’s decision to open the evening rather than close it is typical of Jaguares. Hernandez has repeatedly demonstrated his desire to avoid appearing self-important, identifying instead with the fans, many of whom are working-class Mexican immigrants.

Rock en espan~ol was also represented by two of the movement’s most colorless outfits.

An adequate exercise in tuneful, Anglo-inspired pop-rock, the Chilean trio La Ley is miles behind the sonic innovation of Latin rockers such as Cafe Tacuba, Fabulosos Cadillacs or El Gran Silencio. La Ley has a charismatic frontman in Beto Cuevas and a number of catchy hits to its credit (such as the hypnotic “El Duelo”), but its take on rock ‘n’ roll is hopelessly dated.

Ditto for Moenia, whose moody synth-pop makes it sound dangerously close to a Depeche Mode tribute band. Both La Ley and Moenia prove that for rock en espan~ol to achieve any kind of artistic transcendence, it needs to look deep within itself and add some Latin American roots to the expected Anglo influences.

In the tropical genre, Ilegales got the crowd moving with its trademark merengue-rap mix, while Son by Four proved that its musical stew of Afro-Cuban-inflected rhythm and blues works much better live than on record.

On record, the group combines skillful vocal harmonies with enticing touches of Afro-Cuban textures. In the studio, the result is sometimes too polished for its own good. But onstage, the singers brought an added, welcome edge of intensity.

Surprisingly, the quartet performed only three songs during its 15-minute set, proving that the Reventon festival is in dire need of some major strategic overhauling.

The time might be ripe for its organizers to consider the benefits of a valuable concert device: a revolving stage that allows acts to follow each other without a lengthy delay.

The capacity crowd probably spent almost as much time during a six-hour program waiting for something to happen as it did listening to the evening’s nine acts, which generally performed about 15 to 35 minutes each.

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During the breaks, the venue was turned into a giant club, complete with professional dancers shaking their bods atop six platforms. But the pulsating mix broke the mood created by the live acts, killing whatever momentum that had been built up by the performers.

None of this was much of a shock. The Reventon functions more as a marathon party than a showcase for edgy musicianship. But its varied lineup allows for the discovery of a diamond in the rough. Without Naranjo, it would have been a largely fruitless search Saturday.