REVIEW: Y La Bamba 9/30/22
Last Friday, I went to see Y La Bamba play with QUITAPENAS at The Echo. With a press and photo pass secured by KXSC and a pair of tickets won in an Instagram giveaway, I went with my closest friends as a pick-me-up in the midst of a grueling semester. I had never been to the Echo before, but it was the perfect vibe for a small but festive show attended by diehard fans of both bands and unfamiliar concertgoers who just wanted to dance.
While the night was full of joy, it had a bittersweet shadow over it—the event doubled as a tribute to the late Sumohair, a powerhouse amongst LA’s tropical music scene who passed away in August. Members of both bands wore yellow, Sumo’s favorite color, and encouraged audience members to do so as well. His presence was everywhere—sunny fabrics dotted the moving crowd throughout the night, QUITAPENAS sold a commemorative poster with his likeness, and each set took several moments to acknowledge this immense loss. It was a celebration of Sumo's life and his contributions to the community, beautifully orchestrated to provide comfort in the wake of his passing.
QUITAPENAS was an insane opener unlike any other I’ve personally seen. The six-person band was incredibly in sync, going back and forth from drums to saxophone to maracas to guitar in a raucous symphony of Latinx joy. As soon as they came on stage, the room filled with gritos from fans who could barely contain their excitement. The opening notes of “La Educación” rang out and we got 45 minutes of near-constant radiating, exuberant sound. It pulled out all the dances my mom taught me as a child from my muscle memory, the salsa and cumbia and merengue blending together in perfect harmony. I turned to my friends and yelled something about how this music was good for the heart. The band members mingled in the crowd after their set, buzzing with the euphoria of an incredible performance.
Y La Bamba’s set was, unfortunately, marked by tension that put a damper on their celestial sound. For about half their songs, we could barely hear frontwoman Luz Elena Mendoza, and after most of them she had to ask the sound booth to fix the mix in her in-ear monitor. The band was on the verge of falling out of sync at times, with Mendoza signaling to them to pick up the pace. Despite all of this, they gave us their expectedly beautiful harmonies and instrumentations, bathed in purple light and floating from English to Spanish on a cloud of twangy guitars, shakers, and conga drums. In a quick hour, the band weaved through themes of intergenerational trauma, honoring maternal ancestors, experiencing injustices, feeling out of control, and finding ways to cope with it all. As they closed and left the stage, the audience chanted “Otra! Otra! Otra!” until Mendoza emerged with a sheepish smile and a self-deprecating acknowledgment of the fake exit that comes before an anticipated encore.
After performing one more song with the full band, Mendoza was left alone with her guitar under a veil of golden light. The crowd quickly fell silent as she gave us a parting gift: a quiet, lamentful rendition of the title track from their 2016 album Ojos del Sol. This closer was randomly punctuated by what I assume was the mistaken playing of a joke video off a phone hooked up to the speaker system—yeah, that was weird. Still, Mendoza kept going through the final verses as the crowd softly sang the backing vocals. With a bittersweet tear sliding down her cheek, she finished the song, gave us another earnest thank you, and left the stage. My friends and I exited the venue without saying a word, drifting on the high of a purely magical performance. It was really a beautiful thing to see.
Take care,
DJ Oye