When Gabe’s upstairs gets busy enough, you can see the convexed ceiling wobble over the dance floor. That flimsy barrier dividing the two floors has withstood its fair generations of shows, showing age in an uneasy bending under the weight of its crowds. Driven by a crowd moving to the beat of Cabeza De Chivo, the Gabe’s floor/ceiling danced with us that Saturday night as Mission Creek Festival 2025 came to an end.
The band approached the stage like concert hall musicians. They fiddled with string tunings as they shuffled quietly into place, waiting for the keyboardist to make the final adjustments to his very large sunglasses. Without introduction and only a glance between themselves, the band queued into a loose psychotropical groove. Melodies shifted around a psychedelic haze rooted in a tropical rhythm. Instruments cut in and around each other as the drums maneuvered in between, tempo tumbling, pulling, and pushing to their own whim. The tones from the guitar, bass, and keys were disfigured into a funky electronic mangle, reminiscent of Scooby-Doo’s ghoulish gooey music. Music flowed continuously, until it was hard to pinpoint what was a shift in tempo, change in melody, or just a completely different song.
Cabeza De Chivo’s sound reflects their own city of Chicago, drawing inspirations from cumbia and Jamaican rhythms building colorful melodies bursting with energy. They find inspiration in their own local community, and together create music to share that feeling and inspire a connection in their audience. By transcending the divisions separating people, they create their own space of unity and belonging. Their music bridges the gaps between us, using their groove to draw together any crowd into one body moving together in dance. Just like the music, the dancing did not stop.
Spurred on by music and unyielding to the collective fatigue built up over the long weekend, the crowd danced to the dripping melodic commands. Even the most hardened dudes-at-shows-who-stand-completely-still-with-crossed-arms accidentally loosened their stance into a bouncy sway. Fun spurned into infectious movement. I witnessed a particularly expressive man move in ways I had once thought physiologically impossible, a contortionist’s dance that moved (most impressively!) with the beat. Intoxicated by vicious rhythm, people twisted, jumped, tilted; dancing every which way the human body could while trapped in the hypnotic state swallowing the crowd whole.
That night, everyone in the room danced together under Cabeza De Chivo’s commands. Bending our bodies to bend the floor. You could feel the uneasy sway of wood beneath your feet, the separated worlds of Gabe’s upstairs and downstairs nearly coming together, uniting themselves under the same gooey psychedelia. Creaking wood settled amidst the rising cheers and shouts as the music came to its end, leaving us with leadened muscles and lightened spirits. Closing out with the final sparks of this year’s Mission Creek Festival, Cabeza De Chivo dealt out their infectious groove for us all to dance with, what choice did we have but to obey?
