The revived La Semana Alegre music festival kicked off Thursday evening at Hemisfair with a relaxed atmosphere under cloudy skies and pleasant temperatures.
Hemisfair President and CEO Andres Andujar stood near the Nueva Street entrance quietly observing crowds of patrons as they entered the festival grounds.
“It’s amazing to see version two in motion,” Andujar said, mentioning that events like La Semana Alegre are part of San Antonio’s DNA. He said that the new version of the 1980s and ’90s-era music festival has evolved beyond the concerns that shut the older festival down, in part due to overcrowding and “chaos.”
La Semana Alegre version two ticket sales are limited to 10,000 to create space for people to enjoy themselves, Andujar said. “We have a sophisticated park, and now we can do sophisticated offerings.”
A regular thing, returned
Inside the park on the Plaza Mexico stage, actor Jesse Borrego was introduced as “the pride of the South Side” as he led what he called his “supergroup” Tribú into a funky cover of the hit song “Low Rider” by 1970s band WAR.
As the band played, a 67-year-old white-bearded man who identified himself as “Mr. Zeus” asked a member of the audience to record a video of him dancing. A member of the military, he said he was passing through San Antonio and this was his first experience of La Semana Alegre, but that it compared to other music festivals he’d been to in California.
The woman who filmed him, Sandra Flores, said she and her San Antonio friends had made a habit of attending La Semana Alegre each year while they were students at Taft High School.
“It was a regular thing I did every year for as long as it existed,” Flores said. “I am so excited. They hadn’t even announced the bands yet and I was already buying presale tickets. I just wanted to see my old friends, and sure enough, I’ve already ran into a couple of them.”
She said she was excited to see Borrego, who she had once watched in the famous film Blood In, Blood Out and seen perform in several music festivals, return to the stage.
After the set, Borrego indulged audience members who wanted selfies. Heading backstage, he said he’d missed the earlier versions of La Semana Alegre while pursuing his acting career in Los Angeles but was honored to play in the first revival of the city’s storied music festival.
“I never got a chance to play” back then, “so this is great,” he said.
‘Geeked’ and ‘cheesing’
San Antonio singer-songwriter Isabel Paillao opened the festival on the main Civic Park stage with her band Chavela.
Mingling in the VIP area after her set, the 24-year-old said she’s too young to know about the earlier version of La Semana Alegre but she recognized the importance of being part of the first version of the revived festival.
“I feel like this is the first show in a really long time that I was very geeked onstage the whole time,” Paillao said. “I felt like I was cheesing the whole time, and just very happy to be up there with my bandmates. And I felt like we were doing a really good job and putting on a good show.”
Chavela was followed by the reunion of Lonely Horse, a San Antonio band that gained prominence before splitting and launching singer and guitarist Nicky Diamonds on a solo career. (Diamonds will play a solo set on the Plaza Mexico stage at 2:30 p.m. on Friday afternoon.)
As Lonely Horse’s dour, bluesy strains filled the air around the main stage, lines as long as 50 people formed waiting to order chicken on a stick and gorditas from Don Jordy’s.
Vanita Leo and Christian Felan, who described themselves as “local musicians supporting local musicians,” stood near a grassy area with couples and families reclining on blankets.
“San Antonio has always been labeled as a city that’s not so progressive when it comes to welcoming these [local] artists on big stages like this, so it’s a beautiful sight to see,” Leo said.
Following the Lonely Horse set, Leo and Felan could be seen eagerly taking selfies with Borrego by the Plaza Mexico stage.
Cool music
Eddie Valdez and his partner Esela danced together to Lonely Horse. The 49-year-old Valdez said, “I’m from the 1990s era. So La Semana Alegre resonates deep inside me.”
Valdez recalled back in the day seeing Ice Cube, Color Me Bad, Tupac Shakur, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Def Leppard, Ozzy Osbourne, David Lee Garza and Emilio Navaira among acts he could recall offhand. “I mean, La Semana Alegre was the venue that had all the bands.”
Recalling the moment the revived festival was announced in February, Valdez said, “We saw the offer online [for a] two-day pass for 10 bucks, so we jumped at it.”
San Antonio musician Garrett T. Capps said he was too young to know about La Semana Alegre in its heyday but he understands local music history and has acquired several posters from the earlier years of the festival, including a 30-year-old poster that features Legs Diamond among many bands.
Diamond and La Semana Alegre veteran Joe King Carrasco are acts he wants to catch after his band NASA Country’s Friday afternoon set, Capps said, and he’s also looking forward to seeing The Red Pears and Inner Wave, bands he’s unfamiliar with.
Capps compared the revived festival to a smaller version of Austin City Limits and praised Galaxy Productions and longtime San Antonio music promoter Faith Radle for the festival’s lineup. “I’m a fan of people trying to bring cool original music to town,” he said.
La Semana Alegre continues Friday starting at noon with a full lineup on both the Plaza Mexico and Civic Park stages, with tickets and further information available on the festival website.
