Review: Latin pop icons present an exciting cultural happening in St. Paul

Bad Bunny, Karol G and Peso Pluma should send thank-you notes to Ricky Martin, Enrique Iglesias and Pitbull for opening the doors for Latin pop.

Twenty-five years ago this month, Martin’s electrifying, showstopping performance of “La Copa de la Vida” and “The Cup of Life” on the Grammy Awards catapulted Latin pop into the mainstream. And then Iglesias and Pitbull followed Martin to stardom.

While Bad Bunny and the other aforementioned hot new stars have hugely popular individual tours and a combined monthly Spotify listenership of a staggering 180 million, the three veterans have taken to the road together for the Trilogy Tour with a combined monthly Spotify listenership of an enviable 85 million.

They performed Friday night at Xcel Energy Center, with Martin — all swiveling hips and unerasable smile — opening to the delight of 14,000 dancing fans. It’s the first time the trio of headliners has toured together; they apparently check their egos at the stage door and rotate the order of the show every night, with no advance announcement to concertgoers of who’s on first.

With each superstar offering a 50-minute performance, it was an exciting, energetic, bilingual cultural happening, complete with confetti, fireworks and balloons. However, the sets, featuring 12 to 15 numbers each, felt a little rushed, and disappointingly, there was no collaboration between the three icons or even two of them.

Here’s a look at the concert, in order of appearance.

Age: 52

Hometown: San Juan, Puerto Rico

Outfit: Baggie black pants that would have made MC Hammer proud, a diaphanous black shirt over a gray tank top, chunky black shoes and, for the ballad “Vuelve,” an ivory trench coat over his shirtless body.

Beard: Short and boxy, fully grown and neatly trimmed.

Vibe: Rhythm-driven fun with steady smiles in the crowd and onstage — even the dancers.

Energy level: 80 out of 100

Best patter: “It’s been such a beautiful tour. Thank you for your energy, your love, for the way you dance. I’ll take it home with me.”

Highlight: “Shake Your Bon-Bon,” with its horn-punctuated funk groove and plenty of booty shaking from Martin and his seven dancers.

Comment: In his first Twin Cities appearance in years, the hunky Martin was animated, active all over the stage and runway — and that smile never left his face. Loved how in the middle of Spanish songs, he blurted out “Here we go!” or “Everybody c’mon now.”

Age: 43

Hometown: Miami

Outfit: A dinner jacket (first a black one, then red, then white) over a black shirt and vest, with black pants and shoes, and, of course, his aviator shades.

Beard: A balbo one, with scruff along the jawline that doesn’t connect to his mustache.

Vibe: Nonstop banging dance party with precious little time for Pitbull’s usual inspirational philosophizing about life and education.

Energy level: 110 out of 100

Best patter: “I’m going to make sure you leave this [arena] bilingual tonight.”

Highlight: The jubilant “Give Me Everything” with its relentless energy, confetti, pyro, steam blasts and, of course, booty shaking.

Comment: The Miami Energy Machine crammed 15 songs into 50 minutes, which forced him to truncate tunes and diminish their impact. “I Know You Want Me (Calle Ocho)” was trimmed to about two minutes. That’s neither flirtation nor foreplay. Still, the jump-happy Pitbull was ferocious fun.

Age: 48

Hometown: Madrid, Spain

Outfit: Black T-shirt, black cap, tight black pants covered with lots of zippers, black boots up to his midcalf.

Beard: It looked like he might have started this patchy growth two weeks ago, but the mustache may have been around longer.

Vibe: He’s a casual, handsome guy who knows how to flaunt his sex appeal. But he seemed confused: Acting as if he were on first instead of last, he said, “I hope the next three hours, you forget about all the crazy [stuff] going around.”

Energy level: 50 out of 100.

Best patter: “It’s Friday night, right? I’m a little bit of a drinker, so I get in trouble.”

Highlight: For “Escape,” a 2001 pop hit with a big beat, Iglesias jumped into the pit in front of the stage and let an enthusiastic man sing the chorus “You can’t escape my life” over and over. It was hard to tell who was having a better time — the fan or the star.

Comment: Though Iglesias’ set had the most musical variety and nuance of the three performances, it lacked the consistent energy and pizazz to close the evening. He should be on first every night.