When the Tropicália Music & Taco Festival made its debut at the Queen Mary in 2017, it was clear there was something different about this event.
Tropicália wasn’t a festival just about fun or discovering the latest trendy band. With a hodgepodge of artists representing all sorts of genres, it was about something bigger — capturing the eclectic soul of Latino musical culture in Los Angeles with music that ranged from Norteño to pop to rock plus ’60s soul, rockabilly, punk, rap, hip-hop and more.
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Tropicália has now doubled in size as it moves from the 15,000-person-capacity Queen Mary, where it made its debut with nearly 50 acts, to the Pomona Fairplex, where it’s expected to attract 30,000 people per day with more than 100 artists. And for local musicians performing at the Nov. 9-10 show, not only does Tropicália continue to reflect L.A. Latino musical culture, its growth also reflects something else.
“To see this festival and the amount of attendance… (it shows) we are an economic force, we are a cultural force,” said Miguel “Oso” Ramirez, the percussionist for the L.A.-born band La Santa Cecilia, one of the many local acts performing at third annual festival.
“I love it, man, it makes me happy to see there’s a platform for bands like us and bands we came up with here in Los Angeles,” he said.
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Produced by Goldenvoice, the festival had planned to move from Long Beach to the Pico Rivera Sports Arena grounds this year, but just a few weeks before the event, the concert producer had to find a new home.
Nic Adler, vice president of festivals for Goldenvoice, told the Pomona City Council that Pico Rivera informed the promoter that the festival could not be held at the Pico Rivera site because of an agreement with the Army Corps of Engineers.
Organizers wanted to move the event to Fairplex, but since it was a short timeframe before the concert, the Pomona City Council needed to approve the move, which it did Oct. 21, waiving the 60-day notice required of Fairplex for hosting a large-scale music event.
Now the city will host a lineup that includes Norteño superstars Los Tigres Del Norte, modern alternative Latin-inspired indie pop/rock group Chicano Batman, Colombian R&B singer Kali Uchis and Mexico City-rooted rock band Caifanes.
Besides La Santa Cecilia and other homegrown acts such as Inland Empire’s funky tropical cumbia rock band Quitapenas, Saturday’s roster leans heavy into throwback music with acts like 72-year-old Mexican singer and songwriter Paquita la del Barrio, Colombian cumbia group La Sonora Dinamita, Grammy-winning Mexican rock band Zoe, Argentina’s Enanitos Verdes and ska-fusion group Panteon Rococo.
The Sunday lineup is more of a crossover bill with a number of artists who have played the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in recent years, such as L.A.-born punk band Fidlar, Oh Sees, El Monte-based The Red Pears and punk-cumbia band Tropa Magica from East L.A., who performed at the inaugural Tropicália as Thee Commons, plus Los Angeles based band The Marias.
Mass appeal
The Marias, a genre-bending psych-soul bilingual group, played Tropicália last year and lead singer Maria (who goes only by her first name) attributes some of the success of the festival to its mix of music aimed at Latino audiences that nevertheless also has mass appeal regardless of culture on ethnicity.
“I’m Latinx and I listen to both and I speak both languages and I step in and out of the culture so I think it represents Latinos today like me and like a lot of the other artists on the lineup that are Latinx. It represents how we live on a regular everyday basis,” Maria said.
“I think it (the growth of Tropicália) says that we’re here to stay and that we’re just going to keep growing and our culture will keep on seeping through into other facets of the community and I think this growth is a perfect representation of that,” she said.
David Pacheco, lead singer of Tropa Magica, was at Tropicália from the beginning in 2017 when he performed with his band Thee Commons.
At the upcoming festival his new band will play music from their latest EP called “Smells Like Cumbia,” which is made up of cover songs done cumbia style, so expect to shake your hips to songs including Nirvana’s “Come as You Are,” and Dick Dale’s “Misirlou.”
Like other local musicians Pacheco loves the lineup, although he does have some concerns when it comes to its growth.
“When festivals get that big, there’s definitely something that’s going to be lost. But ultimately I think it’s just a great opportunity for Latinos to show our economic power when it comes to entertainment,” he said.
“The raza is here, there’s raza that wants to hear this type of music and they’re willing to pay for it,” he added.
If you go
When: 11 a.m. Nov. 9-10
Where: Pomona Fairplex, 1101 W McKinley Ave, Pomona
Tickets: $150 and up
Information: tropicaliafestival.com