Edition: U.S. / Global

In Performance; POP

Published: September 15, 1994

A Mexican Stage General Offers Something for Everyone Radio City Music Hall

Juan Gabriel, a Mexican pop star who performed two sold-out shows on Saturday and Sunday, came out for his second show backed by 13 string players, 14 singers, 8 horn players, 3 percussionists and a synthesizer player. In the middle of his three-hour extravaganza, Mr. Gabriel brought out a large mariachi band, too.

There's nothing in English-speaking pop like Mr. Gabriel, and very little in Spanish pop, either. Known for his extravagant hand movements, lip-pursing and hip wiggles, he has a real sense of humor. His songs drip with double-entendres, and his show is meant to give everybody from teen-agers to octogenarians something to like.

On Sunday, Mr. Gabriel, who writes all his material, went through 20 years of songs, including many from his new album, "Gracias por Esperar" (RCA). The songs are rife with betrayal, infidelity and loss, occasionally leavened with the joy of new-found love, and Mr. Gabriel performed them with the skill of an experienced stage general. And everything he did to them cemented a rhetorically brilliant performance, heavy with sentiment, intensely dramatic silences and slightly cracked notes. It was like an intimate conversation between him and every willing recipient of his emotion.

When the mariachis came out, Mr. Gabriel showed his true vocal capabilities. With the band chopping away at the music's tricky Mexican rhythms, he split notes, used hoarse tones, and moved into quivers and shakes. He asked questions in the songs that predicted salacious answers, only to finish them with unpredicted lines. Then he went back to the pop he had been singing before, and the audience, in thrall that Mr. Gabriel had given so much, could give so much, gave him a standing ovation, tears, screams and all. PETER WATROUS