📍ACL Live Moody Theater — Oct. 13, 2025
Written by Clinton Camper / Photos by Luis Lozano

By the time CA7RIEL & Paco Amoroso hit the stage at ACL Live on Monday night, the crowd already felt like it had been teleported straight to Buenos Aires. The duo—arguably the most chaotic export from Argentina’s alt scene—turned the ACL Fest Nights show into a full-blown sensory overload: sweat, lights, bass, and an unrelenting sense of “what did I just witness?”

They opened with “Dumbai,” and the place erupted. It wasn’t just a concert; it felt like a warehouse rave disguised as a rock show. The floor literally shook, and I caught one guy near me yelling every word while clutching his phone like it was sacred scripture. CA7RIEL, with his guitar slung low and a smirk that screamed trouble, shredded through riffs between bursts of Auto-Tuned chaos, while Paco prowled the stage like a menace in motion.

What’s wild is that these two used to play in a jazz-funk band together before diving headfirst into trap, reggaetón, and hyperpop. You can still hear that musicality peeking through the madness—CA7RIEL will rip a solo worthy of a prog-rock record, then immediately drop into a beat that feels engineered to melt faces.

By “A mí no” and “Mi deseo / Bad Bitch,” the room had fully surrendered. The lighting flipped between deep red and electric blue, strobing with every beat, while a handful of fans waved Argentine flags from the balcony. Someone behind me tried (and failed) to start a mosh pit during “Sheesh.” It didn’t quite catch on, but the energy didn’t dip for a second.

The most unhinged moment came during the “McFly / Todo el día / Ola mina XD” run, when CA7RIEL dropped to the floor mid-song, pretending to short-circuit while Paco kept the crowd chanting “¡dale!” until the beat snapped back in. I swear, half the room lost their voices right there.

The chemistry between them is unreal—they’re childhood friends from Buenos Aires who split off into solo careers before reuniting for this tour. That history shows: they play off each other like a two-man circus act, one pushing the energy higher just to see how far the other will go.

They closed with “El único,” and for a few minutes afterward, no one moved. Just stunned faces and laughter, like we all knew we’d witnessed something special—something loud, sweaty, and perfectly unhinged.

If ACL Fest Nights is about giving festival acts space to stretch out and get weird, CA7RIEL & Paco Amoroso turned that space into their personal playground. It wasn’t just a show—it was a bilingual adrenaline rush that left Austin buzzing long after the lights went up.