Grupo Frontera serenades Chicago with their unique mix of norteño and cumbia

It still feels like it was yesterday when a viral video on TikTok made a group of six friends from South Texas into one of the top regional Mexican bands in the country two years ago. On Saturday night, Grupo Frontera sang their famous “No Se Va” cover to a massive crowd at Allstate Arena that sang along passionately.

But the group, characterized by their unique mix of cumbia and norteño, now has more than a dozen of their own hits of love and heartbreak. Many in collaboration with other top artists like Peso Pluma and Bad Bunny have catapulted the band into the top tier of regional Mexican music.

“¿Quien de aqui extraña a su ex? Who missed their ex?” yelled Adelaido “Payo” Solís, the young  Mexican American and lead singer of the band. “La neta hay que olvidarse de esa peronsa. For real, you need to forget that person.”

For almost two hours, an ecstatic crowd sang and danced along to their latest hits including “Ángel” with Romeo Santos, “El amor de su vida” with Grupo Firme, and “De Lunes a Lunes” with Manuel Turizo and many more.

Despite the lyrics of anguish, sometimes sadness, and longing for a loved one, the hints of cumbia give the songs a touch of hope and joy.

An ecstatic crowd yelled, some cheered and a few cried. The songs, mostly about grief and a love that may never return, feel like a hug to many of us who’ve experienced heartbreak. Especially coming from a group of young Mexican Americans that went from a viral TikTok video and performing at Quinceanera and family parties in Texas to selling out venues across the nation and performing at top music festivals.

The group kicked off their tour titled “Jugando a Que No Pasa Nada” which translates into “Pretending Like Everything’s OK When It’s Not,” earlier this year in the U.S. and Mexico. At their Chicago-area concert on Saturday night, entire families, young and older fans, knew the lyrics to almost every single song.

“We know that everyone has gone through something similar. That right now that you’re not drunk you think you can live without him or her; that you’re OK and it no longer hurts,” Payo, 21, the youngest one of the group, told the crowd. “But after a few drinks, at 3 a.m., you end up calling them.”

That was before they played “Ya Pedo Quién Sabe” alongside Christian Nodal, a song that reached 5 million views on YouTube in one week and debuted live on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” in April. In March they also dropped their collaboration with Shakira with the song “Entre Paréntesis.”

At the end of the concert, the group recalled the first time they sold out a venue in Houston, Texas, and how nervous they were.

“I gathered my brothers and told them I needed to yell, to let it out,” said Payo, urging the crowd to yell together before closing down their concert with the song that made them famous on TikTok. A full circle with every concert and every collaboration that has taken them far from performing covers.