Fourteen years after their last performance at Madison Square Garden, Romeo Santos and Aventura returned on Thursday (May 23) to the New York City arena as part of their reunion tour Cerrando Ciclos, and picked up where they left off — with fans enraptured by their music, screaming every word of every one of their bachata songs at the top of their lungs.
From the first chords of “Por un Segundo,” through “Dile al Amor,” “El Perdedor,” and “Brindo con Agua,” Romeo — along with his bandmates Henry, Lenny, and Max Santos and about a dozen musicians on stage — thrilled a crowd that never stopped shouting out each verse and every comment from the singer, who continuously interacted with them.
He even indulged them with a segment in which he performed snippets of songs they requested from the stands, and brought a couple of female fans on stage to sing with him in a moment that felt intimate despite the nearly 20,000-people that filled the venue.
It was as if time had not passed and, to top it off, Aventura had its first surprise guest of the tour at the Garden. Right at the end, for the encore, Judy Santos appeared unexpectedly to perform with Romeo the collaboration they originally recorded in 2002: Aventura’s anthem “Obsesión.”
Produced by CMN Events, the Cerrando Ciclos Tour started on May 1 in Sacramento, California, and has visited cities such as Los Angeles, Houston, and Chicago. The U.S. trek will conclude on Aug. 3 in Hidalgo, TX, before the group heads to Spain for seven shows. Subsequently, they’ll head to San Juan for six shows at the Coliseo de Puerto Rico and continue their journey in Latin America.
The last time Romeo Santos (who launched his solo career in 2012) and Aventura went on tour was right before the COVID pandemic for their 2020 Inmortal Tour, which grossed $25.8 million and sold 189,000 tickets among 15 shows between Feb. 5 and March 10, 2020, according to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore.
For a full setlist of Aventura’s Cerrando Ciclos Tour, click here.