Summer isn’t over just yet. Thrilling bursts of color, energy, and tropical beats from Colombia and Venezuela come together on stage for a joyful two-hour dance party with thousands of strangers-turned-friends. This is the scene on the Astropical tour, featuring Liliana "Li" Saumet from Colombian band Bomba Estéreo and Alberto “Beto” Montenegro from Venezuelan band Rawayana. The 2025 world tour closes at the Greek Theatre in Berkeley this week on Friday, September 12.
The freshly-created supergroup brought the Hollywood Bowl crowd to its feet on a gorgeous full moon night on Sunday, September 7. The concert blended tropical Caribbean beach vibes, Afrobeat rhythms, and electronica, featuring the upbeat songs from their self-titled album Astropical, along with their individual hits, including Bomba Estéreo fan favorites “To My Love,” “Somos Dos,” “Soy Yo,” and a special performance of “Ojitos Lindos,” with Montenegro’s deep voice echoing Bad Bunny’s vocals from the original version.
On the newlyformed band’s astrology-inspired album Astropical, each of the 12 songs reflects a different zodiac sign. The album emerged organically and quickly after Saumet approached Montenegro last year about a collaboration.
“I had an intuition. It was like a message came to me–it’s the time to do something together right now,” says Saumet of Bomba Estéreo. She wrote a letter to Montenegro (through his manager, she casually jokes), and he replied with an original song at 3 a.m. the next morning.
“It was such an honor,” Montenegro says about hearing from Saumet, adding, “they’ve been trailblazers for so many of us. We were already starting to play together in different festivals. It was meant to be.”
Soon, they met in Miami to create new music, and the songs just started to flow. “We made a song in one hour, three songs in a day. So, we decided to make an album. It was natural, not planned,” Saumet says.
Montenegro adds, “the whole process has been very organic. For me, it’s been a good exercise of collaborating–she has so many ideas, the whole concept is very much her esoteric side. It’s entering this colorful life full of flowers and spirituality.”
They completed the album at Saumet’s home in the northern Colombian beach town of Santa Marta–not far from the Venezuelan border. While neighboring Colombia and Venezuela were once part of a large combined nation for a period in the 1800’s, these two countries – located in the northern part of South America – have long had a tense relationship, despite their similarities.
“We come from the same Gran Colombia,” Saumet says. “Even though we are now separate, it doesn’t mean we have to be enemies. Everyone comes from the same thing,” she adds.
Montenegro says, “the accent is quite the same, what we eat is quite the same, what we say, how we say things as slang. It’s been exploring our cultures while we were writing the album.
[Our countries] are like siblings in a way. The relationship I feel is we had a lot in common, but also, we had a lot of cultural conflict. This has been recognized in the music, and it’s beautiful, it’s amazing.”
It’s been a big year for Montenegro’s band Rawayana. They became the first Venezuelan group to win a Grammy, and they brought their Caribbean beach vibes to the desert at Coachella. “We were working on an album in LA during the fires, then the Grammy’s, then Coachella, so it’s really been like a special connection to California this year for us,” Montenegro says.
Though the band doesn’t want to get embroiled in Venezuela’s political situation, authoritarian Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro criticized the lyrics of one of their songs, “Veneka.” This led to the cancellation of Rawayana’s Venezuela tour, forcing them to perform outside their home country.
“Venezuela has been messy for so many years, so in a way we got used to it,” Montenegro says. “It’s kind of weird watching Maduro talking about us, because we’re not connected to them. I really don’t respect them, I know that people don’t really respect them,” he says.
As they bring their live concerts to tens of thousands of fans outside Venezuela, Astropical continues to celebrate the culture and identity of their native countries. At the Hollywood Bowl, Saumet draped the tri-color Venezuelan flag around her for one song, and fans danced with joy wearing flags too.
“We love Colombia, we love Venezuela, we love to talk about what we do,” Saumet says. “Our concert is pretty fun, because we play a lot of songs that make people dance, people smile because we love it, and when you love something, it’s real. Even if we are the most dangerous countries in the world, at the same time, we are the happiest countries in the world. Even in this crazy situation, we’re still having hopes and good things to think about.”
Saumet has become like a big sister to Montenegro, guiding him as his career takes off to new levels. On stage, they sing together like siblings who are best friends, their voices creating an energetic Spanish-language duet paired with the music as they strut and dance on stage.
“We met in this moment when everything is crazy, but I think I have this calm in my mind where I can share with him things about being an artist, a public figure, being a person that lives this life,” Saumet says.
Now, Montenegro hopes he can inspire up-and-coming Latin American artists. “It’s been such a difficult journey for Venezuelans, and for us as a band. We’re focused on being trailblazers,” he says. “For me, it’s doing the best we can with love and passion, and being honest with what we are feeling at the moment, and act with no fear, or with a little bit of fear, but confronting that feeling. It’s an example to those who see what we are doing and can get inspired.”