ACL Review: El Tule

Before making headliners by virtue of ACL Fest stage size, the bookers behind C3 Presents routinely opened sold-out amphitheatre shows at Stubb’s with local acts otherwise accustomed to broom closets. By design, Austin eightpiece El Tule crowds most stages, but the so-called gospel tent in Zilker Park proved an outsized platform for the Latin big band.

Photo by Gary Miller

No luchador masks, zero accordions, and not a single, smoldering heartthrob, El Tule barely has a stage show beyond lotería barker/frontman John Dell. Veteran Haitian timbalista Yonnel Augustin looks like he might belong to another group, while guitarist Stephen Selvey could’ve just gotten off work from Jiffy Lube. A two-man horn section can’t out-brass the group’s closest local comparison: Grammy winners Grupo Fantasma.

And yet, last Saturday the group packed out the tent as if Thievery Corporation had put on a dance contest. Friday of the second weekend, a sparse crowd grew over the hour, but the volume of dancers stayed the same – a majority. Where the señoritas at? El Tule – bustin’ a move.

The octet’s electro cumbias ranged from the Austin County Flea Market (“Pulga 280”) and San Antonio (“Tres Viudas”) all the way south to Colombia. When the cumbias hit double time, their eyes-white beat dizzied no less than a zydeco binge. Slowed by half, Selvey’s lancing leads stood out like scars. Carlos Santana’s Caribbean accents of the Eighties live in the lead guitarist’s surgical stitching.

Meanwhile, the trumpet/trombone tandem of Joseph Ledesma and Max Garza powered the whole electric company with jet-engine gales, whose acoustics in the tent sounded as pristine as Bass Concert Hall. A few dancers might be needed if El Tule ever takes that UT stage – and a lot more ushers to tamp down the ensuing dance riot in the aisles. Whatever size stage, these ocho locos boil Spanish down to one word: c-u-m-b-i-a.