Two weeks ago, I had the privilege of traveling to Atlanta to witness the one and only Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, aka Bad Bunny aka el Conejo Malo. It was a five hour drive which consisted practically purely of Bad Bunny’s latest two albums, YHLQMDLG and EL ÚLTIMO TOUR DEL MUNDO. He released YHLQMDLG, (an acronym for “Yo Hago Lo Que Me Dé La Gana”, also “I do whatever I want” in English) in February of 2020, with EL ÚLTIMO TOUR DEL MUNDO following in November of the same year. His albums were consecutively Billboard and top music chart hits, landing him as Spotify’s globally most streamed artist of 2021, with 9.1 billion streams and Taylor Swift landing right behind him in second place. Bad Bunny stans beating out Swifties alone is a wild accomplishment. 

With the Grammys this past week, there was a brand new award that was established this year, called the Grammy Award for Best Música Urbana Album. This award extends the Grammys’ Latin music field, previously holding awards only for “Best Regional Mexican Music Album”, “Best Latin Rock or Alternative Album”, “Best Tropical Latin Album”, and “Best Latin Pop Album” (which Bad Bunny won the year before for YHLQMDLG). This award is reserved for reggaeton, Latin trap, Latin hip-hop, etc, and Bad Bunny is officially its first ever winner. There is, of course, a larger conversation to be had regarding the Grammys tendency to segregate Latin and black artists into their own categories, such as having specifically Latin awards instead of allowing them to be contenders for greater awards such as Album of the Year, and the pushing of black artists into R&B or hip-hop despite them belonging to other genres. 

But back to tour talk. According to Bloomberg, this most recent tour of his is currently the number one tour in the world, having sold more than 300,000 tickets in the last month alone, and with each performance going out to about 16,000 people a night. The tickets for these concerts were released a year before the tour, and were sold out in mere minutes. 

My eldest sister was at the computer almost an hour before they were online, sitting in the waiting room and refreshing the page as much as possible. A literal minute after she completed the purchase of three Bad Bunny tickets for the State Farm Arena in Atlanta (with ticket insurance and parking included), all the tickets were sold out. AND THIS WAS PRESALE. The only reason we were able to snag tickets was because of Bad Bunny stan Tiktok, as they scoured the web for presale codes and we were lucky enough to stumble upon the right one. To be completely truthful, we were right up in the nosebleeds, but the fact that we even got a ticket was mind blowing, so who were we to judge? 

After waiting an entire year to finally see the man, the myth, the legend in concert, there was zero and I mean ZERO disappointment to be found. My two sisters and I arrived to the venue about an hour before the doors opened, which I was worried wasn’t going to be early enough since I’d planned to arrive at least like two hours beforehand, but as they say, “Latinos are always late”, and Bad Bunny fans are no exception. (Bad Bunny himself even showed up on stage an hour late but as long as you do it with style, there’s no complaints). We split up for maximum success: I stayed in line and my sisters ran to find the pre-concert merch pop-up shop. 

Maximum success was indeed achieved, as the line quickly moved indoors and I was first in line to one of six metal detectors directly in front of the doors. Once the doors opened, it was a mad dash, and I had to run up a flight of stairs and two escalators to get to our section #nosebleed slay. As I approached our seats, I quickly realized that I was alone in the mad dash except for another guy whose seat was two away from mine. We both slowed our roll and sat down calmly, retrieving our bracelets, which was the primary reason for the urgency to get to our seats. The bracelets were one-of-a-kind Bad Bunny tour certified bracelets that light up with every song during the concert, and according to a lot of Bad Bunny Tiktokers, people were arriving early to steal as many as they could. 

At this point, I was waiting for my sisters to arrive and watching the rest of the stadium fill up, Latino after Latino. It was genuinely the largest Latino gathering I have ever personally experienced (besides when being in México, for obvious reasons), and my heart was full. DJ Orma was playing Latin classics as we waited, and the whole stadium would erupt in song and dance, cheering for their favorite songs, creating the most comforting and happy atmosphere. 

Another perk of Bad Bunny’s tour was the sheer amount of people in shark costumes, a joke of sorts for his song, “Safaera”. He sings “Mami ¿Qué tú quiere’? Aquí llegó tu tiburón”, “tiburón” meaning “shark” in Spanish, prompting the inflatable shark suits to go wild. 

Finally, after an hour of waiting, the lights dimmed. The tarp was removed off a shape that was directly in the middle of the performance area, revealing a 50-foot long semi truck, and its horn blared. There was a pause and the horn blared a second time, screams and cheers erupting from the crowd as fire spit from the truck’s exhaust pipes, and Bad Bunny appeared on top of the truck. We went crazy, cheering for a solid two to three minutes, Bad Bunny just standing and taking it all in, then immediately going into “El Mundo Es Mío”, the truck rolling forward towards the crowd. 

The truck was one of the most genius stages I’ve ever seen, as it folded open as he performed and transformed into a flat stage, and later separated into three smaller stages, which he worked with so well. The stages acted as screens along with other screens that rotated above the stage, with beautiful graphics that changed for each song. The light work was phenomenal, with flashing lights going everywhere, confetti being released from time to time, and firecrackers and flames shooting out from around him. Whoever is his creative director is a genius. His dancers enhanced the energy of the songs they were out for, even going through an outfit change halfway through, with Bad Bunny’s guitarists taking center stage in their absence. During their song “Una Vez”, Bad Bunny had Mora come on stage, a secret and heavily awaited guest star of the many he has had on this tour. 

Throughout his performance, Bad Bunny wholly controlled the entire audience, even us up in the nosebleeds (which ended up being perfect seats because we could see everything super well), and would take a moment during songs to thank us. During “Maldita Pobreza”–a song about not having enough money to treat your girlfriend to a fancy new car or expensive things–he paused in the middle of it with some genuinely heartfelt and inspiring words. He made what was an entire stadium of people feel like an intimate moment.

Seeing Bad Bunny in concert was an experience that my sisters and I had been waiting an entire year for, and there was not one aspect of the real experience that was disappointing in the slightest. It was genuinely the best concert I have ever experienced in my entire life, from the unity and the energy of the crowd to his stage presence to his performance to the sheer design genius, it was perfect. If there is one man to see in concert this year, it’s Bad Bunny.