You love music. You love tacos. What about comedy? Tropicália Taco and Music Festival on Saturday, Nov. 11, with Felipe Esparza.

By Paty Elias

You love music. You love tacos. What about comedy?

General admission to the Tropicália Taco and Music Festival on Saturday, Nov. 11, 2017, at Queen Mary Park in Long Beach is $85 to $95, but that includes all the free tacos you can eat until 4 p.m..

If they run out of tacos, there will be an endless supply of comedy from the festival’s host, “Last Comic Standing” winner Felipe Esparza.

You may come for headliners Los Tigres Del Norte, Chicano Batman and Kali Uchis, Sonora Dinamita, and newly added Café Tacvba, Jhené Aiko, Ivy Queen, Bane’s World, Chrome Sparks (DJ Set), and Summer Salts, or the two-dozen other acts on the bill, but Esparza – whose comedy career didn’t die a post-reality-TV death – will tie it all together. That and the tacos.

The Tropicália Taco and Music Festival, promoted by the Observatory Group of Orange County, aims to compete with the big dogs in promoting huge music events.

But Tropicália is different from your average Coachella/Lollapalooza clone in that it is targeting Southern California’s substantial Latino population while fully embracing the fact that different Latinos are passionate about wildly different kinds of music yet are open to a fuller sonic experience than your average giant concert experience.

The festival’s various stages will feature acts with styles ranging from psychedelic funk to norteño to cumbias, and it’s going to be one big eclectic mix of food, music and laughter with Esparza serving up major laughs in between music acts and during his own 4 p.m. set.

Part of the appeal for host Esparza is being able to introduce the music he heard growing up:

“I think it’s (the promoters’) first festival. I don’t think anyone would have ever of thought of putting Los Tigres Del Norte and the Delfonics on the same show. I think one person described it by saying ,’This concert has all the music my mom listens to when she cleans.’.

 

“I couldn’t believe it. When I was in Des Moines, Iowa, I screamed in the air because I saw that Maná was going to play with some other bands I like,

and I thought,’Why can’t we have a concert like that in California?’ And then when I get home, I get and email with the (Tropicália Taco and Music Festival) lineup, and I was like ‘What!!!’ because I know most of these bands, I know Chicano Batman, I know Celso Pina because sometimes I go up on stage to his songs,”Cummbiaa sonidero sonidero sonidero nacional.,” Esparza recounts while singing a song from each artist.

In addition to a full day of music, the event will be serving up delicious FREE tacos until 4 p.m. – you can purchase them after 4 – with taco vendors such as Carnitas El Momo, Dia de los Puercos and Taqueria la Vengenza. There will be  vegan options and more.

Esparza is looking forward to the vegan tacos. “I’m more worried about if there are going to be enough tacos for everybody and me. Yeah, I’m vegan. I’m going to go for the vegan tacos – I’m super excited about that – tacos vegenaise.”

Esparza’s comedic star has been on the rise for some time, but he was no overnight success. He has been hitting the comedy circuit since 1994, with his fame shooting up in 2010 when he won “Last Comic Standing.”

Esparza has appeared on numerous TV shows, including “Superstore” (in a recurring role), “The Tonight Show,” “Lopez Tonight,” “Premium Blend,” “The Eric Andre Show,” “Comic View” and Galavisión’s “Que Locos,” where he has made more appearances than any other comedian.

Esparza uses a lot of his personal life experience – the good and the bad (mostly bad) – to entertain the masses.

Esparza grew up listening to  “Los Tigres del Norte.

“I grew up watching the movies like “La Banda del Caro Rojo,” and it just so happened that I shot my special in San Jose – and they are from San Jose. And the Tigres del Norte’s kids where at my show. It’s always cool when you like somebody, and then you find out that their kids are your fans. I really love Paul Rodriguez, and my son loves his son. My son wears Paul Rodriguez’s son’s tennis shoes. He wore his shirts, he had a skateboard from him. Me, I have posters of Paul Rodriguez Sr,. I guess.”

The lively comic is the real deal. What you see is what you get – there is no “off” button.  Esparza is funny, upbeat and waiting to try out his latest joke on you.

“It’s tough at first because as a comedian, when your starting out, you start to create jokes out of mid-air, but they start to wear out, and that’s how I was doing it. I was just trying to come up with jokes. So one of my first jokes was my dad used to walk around the neighborhood and collect furniture, and he fixed it like MacGyver. One time he brought a television home. And I was like, ‘Wow, that TV has 500 channels.’ But when it got older, it didn’t have 500 channels – it was a knob from the oven. And we had another TV, and it didn’t work, and my brother said, ‘Use the knob from the stove,” so I did, and everyone started laughing, and I came up with a joke.

 

“We were poor growing up – we didn’t know we were poor. But we had stuff in our house that made you suspect that we where poor. Like one time, my father brought home a washing machine, and man we had the only washing machine in the neighborhood that needed quarters.”

Esparza just came out with his newest stand-up special, “Translate This,” for HBO, and is currently on his “Bad Decisions” comedy tour.

“I’m super excited. I’m going to go to places I have not been to in a long time. – like Hermosa Beach, California; Salinas, California; Bakersfield, California; Allison, Texas; Boulder, Colorado; Atlanta – yeah I’m super excited it’s called the ‘Bad Decisions’ Tour.

“Most of the jokes you hear on this tour are not on the special or on YouTube. Fresh material. I go deep – deep and personal. I’m going to say stuff that my parents might disown me.

“For example, my Mom told me never to talk to strangers. Me, I talk to every stranger. One time she caught me dancing by myself in an ice cream truck with no T-shirt on. And she was more worried about me being gay than me being molested or hurt by that ice cream man, and I was telling my mom,’What’s so gay about dancing  for free ice cream?’”


As for joking and making jokes in this day and age of political correctness:

“I think social media has given everybody in the world a mouthpiece. Everybody wants to share their opinion. and then you start losing friends. But your like, ‘Wait a minute – this person doesn’t like cats? I’m a cat lover! What’s wrong with you, I love cats, I think cats should be in this country’. Then they go from cats to food, then Mexicans are arguing about who makes a better tortilla. And then somebody pulls out a pupusa.

 

“I remember I went to a page just to learn how to make flour tortillas on YouTube. It was just and instructional tape. I don’t know what happened down there in those comments, but wow man it got racial. Next thing you know, I’m reading all the comments – I forgot that I was there to learn how to make tortillas. I mean, I had to show my passport to get off the page. I had to prove my citizenship to make another comment.”

TROPICALIA 
Music & Taco Festival

Saturday November 11, 2017

The Queen Mary
1126 Queens Hwy
Long Beach, CA 90802

Open to all ages!

Tickets available here!