There were moments during Thursday's Latin Grammy Awards ceremony in Las Vegas that were so unexpected, daring or just plain fun that you wished Sin City's famous slogan didn't apply: It would be a shame if what happened on stage there really did just stay there.
Sorry to say, though, most people who don't speak Spanish or watch the Univision network missed out on some of the best performances in the eight-year history of the international music competition. Wouldn't you know it? They get it right when the rest of the world isn't watching.
On paper, the concept for the night's show made me cringe. Hey, we're in Vegas. Why not match Latino artists with some big Vegas shows? So pop singer Ricky Martin got teamed with the Blue Man Group, and Puerto Rico's irreverent rap duo Calle 13 was matched with Stomp Out Loud.
My first reaction: Will they never learn?
The Latin Grammys spent its first five years broadcasting in English on CBS, trying to project Latin music across a great cultural divide. Producers went into contortions trying to make the music palatable to Middle America, often teaming top Latino stars with an English-language act (David Bisbal with Jessica Simpson) for no reason other than ratings, assuming non-Latinos would watch only if they recognized some non-Latino celebrity.
That didn't work. CBS pulled the plug on the telecast, which Univision happily scooped up. The Latin Grammys, it seemed, were destined to go back to the ghetto and stay in the ghetto.
But when Ricky opened Thursday's show with a booming, boisterous version of his festive dance hit "La Bomba" backed by those funny guys in blue paint, the show's original vision of cross-cultural collaboration was finally vindicated. The group's thunderous, theatrical percussion work was perfectly suited to the song's bottom-heavy tropical arrangement. And the Blue Men showed off some salsa moves.
For the song's finale, Martin joined the group behind some kettle drums filled with colored water. As they beat the aqueous instruments with sticks in unison, colors splashed out to Caribbean beats and Martin ended up happily drenched.
Now that's an opener. We'll remember Martin's number long after we forget that he lost in major categories to Dominican singer-songwriter Juan Luis Guerra, the night's big winner with five awards, including a clean sweep of record, album and song categories. Martin's acoustic retrospective "MTV Unplugged" garnered two trophies for male pop vocal album and long form video.
