Interpol Play Mexico City: Backstage and in the Crowd at Their Biggest Show Ever (2024)

Interpol in Mexico City

Interpol has performed in Mexico City many times over the years, but this time felt special. “It was a very beautiful culmination of that long relationship that we’ve had, bringing it to the present,” Banks says. “This is a real monument to the relationship we have with Mexico, and hopefully there’ll be more to come.”

Interpol in Mexico City

The moody, romantic feel of Interpol’s music encourages fans to express themselves to the fullest.

Interpol in Mexico City

Mariachi Fiesta de Mexico, a local group, began the show with a surprise opening set that included some classic mariachi standards and a cover of Interpol’s 2004 hit “Evil” that got the crowd cheering. (The group played it twice.)

“Mariachi is something that people really embrace in Mexico,” Banks says. “I had a feeling that that would go over well with the fans, and from what I can gauge, people loved it.”

Interpol in Mexico City

One fan brought headbands showing photos of Interpol’s three core members: Banks, guitarist Daniel Kessler, and drummer Sam Fogarino. (Fogarino was absent from this show, as he is recovering from surgery.)

Interpol in Mexico City

Banks exchanges a backstage high-five with Water From Your Eyes vocalist Rachel Brown. “I heard Rachel from side of stage cracking jokes and being their authentic self,” Banks says. “They have incredible poise. That’s quite incredible, that they were so calm as to be witty and charming in the way that I’ve seen them be in very small venues.”

Interpol in Mexico City

Other fans came in T-shirts celebrating the Zócalo show. The 57,600-square-meter space is one of the largest public squares in the world.

Water From Your Eyes

Water From Your Eyes’ touring lineup (from left): bass player Al Nardo, vocalist Rachel Brown, drummer Bailey Wollowitz, and multi-instrumentalist Nate Amos.

Interpol in Mexico City

“The audience had a very chill energy,” Banks says. “They were all there to have a good time.”

Interpol in Mexico City

Kessler and Banks backstage before the show.

The night at the Zócalo brought back memories of their past concerts in Mexico, going back to 2005. “From day one of Interpol playing down there, we’ve always had these crazy shows,” Banks recalls. “Our first show there had to get canceled because it looked like the floor was going to collapse. We had to stop it halfway through because the fans were hitting a resonant frequency with the floor and it was just undulating in a wave. Our tour manager had to walk out and be like, ‘We can’t do this. The building’s going to come down.'”

Water From Your Eyes

Water From Your Eyes took the stage after sundown, playing impish, avant-garde bangers like “Buy My Product” and “Barley.”

“That was just f*cking awesome,” Banks says. “We love that band. It’s not really mainstream, it’s challenging. But I had a hunch that the fans were going to get it — because even if you’re really left to center, if it’s good and it’s real and it’s passionate and it’s authentic, I think it’s going to translate. And they did.”

Paul Banks

Speaking from the stage in fluent Spanish, Banks told the crowd that Mexico City feels like the band’s second home, adding in English, “We love you.”

“Some of my most important relationships and friendships came from my time in Mexico,” he tells Rolling Stone. “And to this day I have some very dear friends there.”

Water From Your Eyes

Water From Your Eyes’ Rachel Brown tells Rolling Stone that the whole show felt surreal: “I feel like the only moment of clarity I had throughout the entire set was looking out into the crowd during our last song and seeing people waving their flashlights in the air and thinking about beautiful it looked, and how I was going to have to tap Nate on the shoulder as soon as he finished his guitar solo stuff so that he could look up to see it too.”

Interpol in Mexico City

The Zócalo was completely packed with fans.

Interpol in Mexico City

Aside from a warmup show in Mexico City two days earlier, this was Interpol’s first performance of 2024.

Interpol in Mexico City

Interpol’s set was heavy on fan favorites like “Say Hello to the Angels,” “Obstacle 1,” and “PDA.”

Interpol in Mexico City

A final moment before taking the stage.

Interpol in Mexico City

The Zócalo is in a part of the city whose history goes back centuries. “It was the center of Aztec culture as well, before it was the town center of Mexico City,” Banks says. “That does give it a really crazy historic gravitas for me.”

Interpol in Mexico City

“I felt very at ease, very comfortable,” Banks reflects. “It’s like when you’re on an airplane, you don’t really look down and have a fear of heights, because you can’t process what you’re even seeing. When it’s a sea of people like that, it’s just too mind-blowing. There’s no preset on how to process that in our evolution, so it’s generally not that daunting for me. Whereas if I had to stand up at a wedding and make a joke or give a toast, I would have far more anxiety.”

(Pictured: Interpol’s touring bassist, Brad Truax.)

Interpol in Mexico City

“There were couple of really special moments,” Banks says. “Like in ‘NYC,’ when everyone seemed to impromptu take out their phone lights — that was really one of the most striking things I’ve seen in our career, the sea of white lights like stars, as far as I could see.”

Interpol in Mexico City

“I had a blast,” Banks says. “It really couldn’t have gone better. You just hope that things come together when it’s that big of an event. You hope that you feel good, and the audience is feeling good and the weather’s nice, and all of those things came to be and it was great.”

(Pictured: Interpol’s touring keyboardist, Brandon Curtis.)

Interpol in Mexico City

Interpol’s set included one song from their 2022 albumThe Other Side of Make-Believe: the piano-led “Toni.”

Interpol in Mexico City

Excited fans chanted Interpol’s name between songs.

(Pictured: Touring drummer Chris Broome.)

Interpol in Mexico City

This summer, the band will be touring in Europe with Smashing Pumpkins. They also have dates there this fall celebrating the 20th anniversary of their second album, Antics.

Interpol in Mexico City

They closed with a three-song encore of “Untitled,” “No I in Threesome,” and “Stella Was a Diver and She Was Always Down.”

Interpol in Mexico City

“I feel like as a 20-year marker, it was really profound and special,” Banks says. “I felt very fortunate and blessed cosmically, because I find that one is not always 100 percent in control of how one feels in their inner monologue, in their inner climate. But that day, I just felt very lucky.”