Ruido: Spanish for Lollapalooza

When it comes to influential summer music festivals, Chicago is known for Lollapalooza. The traveling festival, founded by Jane’s Addiction singer Perry Farrell in 2005, is now joined by another local festival counterpart which is making a lot of ruido (noise). A festival that gives Chicago the ability to position itself as a mecca of summer concerts for the most influential musical acts in the Spanish-speaking and/or Latinx world. This is Ruido Fest.

Ruido Fest started in 2015 and is self-described as “Chicago’s newest alternative Latin music festival.” Each July in Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood, the three-day festival delights concertgoers with lineups that include Latin post punk, electronic, hip-hop, rock, psychedelic, tropicalia, reggae, and punk acts from around the Spanish-speaking world.

With two main stages and a third small stage for DJs, this year’s festival, which occurred on July 7 – 9, included a total of 50 musical acts featuring both heavyweights and up-and-coming musicians in just one short weekend. With several Grammy and Latin Grammy winners among the artists in the lineup, such as the Venezuelan band Los Amigos Invisibles, Mexican acts such as Molotov and Julieta Venegas, Colombian band Bomba Estéreo, the Chilean  Mon Laferte and the Puerto Rican band Cultura Profética, the festival brought to Pilsen a great representation of contemporary Latin American music.

Which other names were in Chicago for this year’s Ruido Fest? Glad you asked! A few of my favorites:   Titán, Desorden Público, Gepe, Adan Jodorowsky, Silver Rose, Silverio, A Band Of Bitches, Javiera Mena, El Guincho, Sotomayor, Los Nastys, Extraperlo, Wet Baes, Chulita Vinyl Club,  Fobia, Álex Anwandter, Rostros Ocultos, Víctimas Del Doctor Cerebro, Ruido Rosa and Las Piñas.

However, the importance and influence of Ruido Fest comes not just from its lineups, but from the distinct place it holds within Chicago’s Latinx community, and from the current historical moment it inhabits. 

According to the latest U.S. census, the population of Chicago is 28% Hispanic, making the Windy City the Midwest’s most populous metropolitan area in regard to Latinos. In addition, the 2000 census reported that over 56 percent of foreign-born Chicagoans were from Latin America, making it a city with a constant influx of cultural – and therefore musical – influence arriving from that part of the world.

Although Latinos represent only about 7% of the total population of the Midwest, and Illinois suffers the highest unemployment rates of the region, they are on average the highest Spanish-speakers earners in The Americas. This makes Latinos in the Midwest big influencers and patrons of Latin music, making the conditions right to support an event like Ruido. 

From day one of the festival, it was clear that Ruido Fest musically reflects the shifting socio-demographics of the Latinx community in Chicago and beyond. Seamless changes between lyrics sung in English and Spanish, as well as the mix of local and international participants, demonstrate these shifts.

The Pilsen neighborhood is as much a participant in the festival as the concertgoers and the bands. For the past three years, Ruido Fest has been held at the Addams-Medill Park, which is located in the middle of Pilsen. A predominantly Mexican-American neighborhood since the 1950s, Pilsen was at the center of Chicago’s Chicano Movement in the ‘60s. Pilsen’s Historic District became a National Historic Register District in 2006 and is one of Chicago’s largest art districts.

Pilsen is known to be a hotbed for Latinx visual artists, as well as home to numerous diverse forms of street art; it’s common to see murals, stencil paintings, posters, and sculptures around the neighborhood that receive support from the National Museum of Mexican Art, one of the sponsors of the festival.  

Pilsen’s unique and longstanding role within the Chicago arts scene is the very reason that many bands coming to Ruido Festival passed up hotel rooms to stay in the homes of fellow artists living in the Pilsen neighborhood. The neighborhood provides certain degree of anonymity, bilingual/bicultural interaction, and artistic connections that are unique.

Without a doubt, Ruido Fest is a unique and formative player in Chicago’s musical and cultural landscape. You can see the energy and popularity for yourself in the five slideshows from this summer’s Ruido Fest.