RICKY MARTIN WAS NOT THERE; BANDS AT WATCHA FESTIVAL DELIVER HARDER LATIN SOUND.

Byline: Fred Shuster Music Critic 

Who's killing the great summer rock tours of America?

Lollapalooza, Horde and Further are on indefinite leave while Lilith goes on hiatus at the end of the month, leaving only Warped and OzzFest.

Now, it looks like you can add Watcha to the list of summer perennials.

The high-energy tour, produced by the organizers of the annual hard-rock- and thrash-fueled Warped trek, came to the 6,000-seat Greek Theatre for the first time Sunday with its genre-bending lineup of Latino acts, including Cafe Tacuba, Puya, Molotov, Illya Kuryaki, Control Machete, Todos Tus Muertos, Fishbone, Los Mocosos, Bersuit, Enanitos Verdes, Union 13, Chris Perez and Viva Malpache.

And while the quality of the music varied, Watcha - which, roughly translated, means ``check it out'' - was an unqualified success, with the open-air venue nearly three-quarters filled.

A young and mostly Latino crowd gathered for the show, which ignored the Latin-lite English-sung pop of Ricky Martin and Jennifer Lopez and instead accented a hard-hitting mix of Spanish-language thrash, metal and hip-hop.

Speaking of hip-hop, it took only a turntable and two Spanish rappers for one of the show's highlights, trio Control Machete, to control the Greek. The unit pummeled the audience with a series of sharply chosen beats, including quick samplings of ranchera, while the rappers roared over the top.

Although the lyrics were usually delivered too fast for easy comprehension, we could make out phrases such as ``Hey, John Doe, que paso.''

After seeing the audience respond to Control Machete by waving Mexican and Puerto Rican flags, you can clearly see Watcha's commercial potential.

Another fine band was Puya, hailing originally from Puerto Rico, whose head-banging metallic attack and Spanish-language cover of the '80s Police hit ``Spirits in the Material World'' helped transform the area in front of the Greek's stage into a seething mosh pit.

The hard-rock group also used a three-piece horn section on a few numbers, including a syncopated midtempo tune that seemed to be a tribute to Santana, the long-surviving Latin-rock pioneers whose spirit hung over several performances Sunday.

Other acts receiving good response included the often-melodic Viva Malpache, whose charged ballads and rockers drew cheers, and Chris Perez, widower of slain Tejano superstar Selena, who offered pop-rock originals that acted as a pleasing contrast to the sometimes overly loud approach of fellow performers.

Unfortunately, Los Angeles' Fishbone had the curious effect of stopping everyone that had been up and dancing for earlier bands. The ska-thrash group, back on the comeback trail after a long hiatus, tried to rebound with its perennial cover of Curtis Mayfield's ``Freddie's Dead.''

But it was too late - crowd members were already trickling out.

CAPTION(S):

2 Photos

PHOTO (1) Singer John Garza, left, and bassist Adriel Ramirez of the Chris Perez Band perform at the Watcha festival of Latin-oriented bands Sunday at the Greek Theatre.

(2) Viva Malpache singer Giovanny Blanco delivers a mix of ballads and rockers to the mostly young and Latino crowd at Watcha

Charlotte Schmid-Maybach/Staff Photographer