Local and national acts took the stage at San Jacinto Plaza for El Paso’s inaugural Sol Summit Festival. Headlined by Bomba Estéreo and The Flaming Lips, the two-day non-profit event centered around music, culture and community saw thousands of attendees during a weekend marked by other notable performances from high profile acts across the city.
Organized by the El Paso Community Foundation (EPCF), foundation president Eric Pearson commented on plans for the festival in a statement provided to media in February.
“Sol Summit is a great way to celebrate downtown and all that El Paso offers,” Pearson said. “It’s an important way to showcase Latino voices and local bands together with some of the best rock groups in the world.”
In the months leading up to the event, the EPCF encouraged local businesses and vendors in the El Paso region to apply for a curated makers market. Collaborations with the El Paso Museum of Art and Mexican American Cultural Center for a festival “Kid Zone” followed, along with local giveaways, immersive art exhibits and lead up performances hosted by local bands.
Comments by Sol Summit Festival Director Seth Dodson reflected a similar emphasis on community collaboration, specifically on searching for “locally grown” talent to make the event “authentic” to El Paso’s audiences.
A third of Sol Summit’s inaugural lineup is from the El Paso and Ciudad Juárez area. In an interview with Minero Magazine, Dodson made it clear that he hoped the decision would help the entertainment resonate with local music markets while giving artists “some more shine in their careers.”
“That was something really important to me and I think that bringing those bands into something that would have the appeal, scope and the audience that Sol Summit does will hopefully bring these folks into the more national level,” Dodson said.
Local businesses also received publicity. Ivan Morales and clothing line, Eighteen Eighty One, were one of twelve community artisans featured in Sol Summit’s Makers Market. According to Morales, the festival has given Eighteen Eighty One a significant amount of exposure.
“It (Sol Summit) stands for everything we stand for. Our background is hardworking people, is heartfelt people, people that are cozy, and that’s exactly what this (Sol Summit) feels like right now,” Morales said “It’s giving a lot of exposure and the opportunity to celebrate the people of El Paso through our quality good.” With more eyes on merchandise, Eighteen Eighty One was hoping to sell out of inventory by the end of the weekend, something he was optimistic about at the start of the festivals first day.
Sol Summit shared the city with three major entertainment events in the region during its inaugural weekend. Among them, Michelada Fest, El Paso Comic Con, and global Korean pop group BTS’s Arirang World Tour. Organizers like Dodson hoped that high traffic in the area would help increase festival attendance by drawing in tourists exploring the downtown area.
Local Indian food truck Rosies Dhaba believes that the recent influx of people in the area from events like BTS’s concerts helped boost sales over the course of the festival’s first day. “So far so good, we’re getting a good crowd, I guess BTS is helping,” a food truck spokesperson said near the end of the festival’s first day.
Performances
The festival kicked off with a performance from The Smith’s cover mariachi, El Mariachi Manchester. Jalisiense renditions of “The First of the Gang to Die” and “Ask” were followed by accordion-riddled cries for help from Frontera Bugalú frontman Kiko Rodriguez.
“Tengo que salir de aquí, aunque sea un paraíso,” Rodriguez sang, just before experimental group, Titanic began their own set. The band, a collaboration between I. La Católica and Mabe Fratti, determined, from the first words uttered during their set (“No me vayas a pedir el último cigarro cuando se acabe el mudo, no te voy a dar mi sombra cuando pege el sol”), to carve out their place in a diverse musical lineup.
Benjamin Booker began his performance on the festival side stage at 4:45 p.m. The musician from Tampa Bay Florida embarked on a reflection in search “of a real thing” in lead-up to standout sets from Puerto Rico’s Chuwi and the El Paso/Juarez’s Radio Malilla. Shoegaze veterans DIIV rounded out their anticipated set just after sundown, with vocalist and guitarist Zachary Cole Smith touting a guitar with a Guitar Center price tag still attached.
Musician Ela Minus would answer questions about her favorite foods from fans, before posing her own series of questions, asking concert goers “How can I sing for myself if now I’m broken?” over helpings of thumping electronic drums and bass. Bomba Estéreo gave the first of two headlining performances by singing with fans in the general audience area and inviting them on stage to dance before DJ Rodriga Rockmore closed off the night with a live vinyl set.
Alternative rock act Bloomwave welcomed Day Two attendees with wailing vocals and guitars before indie project Doom Well previewed songs from an upcoming album with a 3:30 p.m. show. A half hour later, Angélica Garcia drew crowds back to the festival main stage with a string of dramatic and impassioned vocal performances later subverted by playful encouragement for onlookers to climb festival gates, courtesy of Sultanes Del Yonke’s 4:45 p.m. side stage block party.
Adrian Quesada’s Trio Asesino presided over a mellow change of pace to the beat of the group’s signature “boleros psicodelicos,” only for Sonic Ranch’s own Estereomance to delve further into sonic exploration with their own psychedelic excursion.
Ximena Sariñana provided the first “high-profile” act of the night with her hour-long 7:00 p.m. set, curating material from her entire discography for eager festival goers. As Sariñana performed, audiences started making their way to the side stage for a highly anticipated Sparta set nearly thirty minutes before the band was set to take the stage. Sparta frontman Jim Ward would make his way through post punk palettes in front of general audiences made up of fans new and old (some “new” enough to have been cradled in the arms of seasoned fans) before the festival’s final performance.
The Flaming Lips rounded out the event with a lively barrage of over-the-top antics, among them, confetti cannons, oversized renditions of rubber beach ball balloons, an assortment of inflatable 15-foot pink robots, aliens, yellow dwarf stars and a pair of lips and eyeballs the size of band frontman Wayne Coyne. Coyne would sport an American flag for a cape for the only encore performance of the weekend: a two-song number made up of a timely “War Pigs” cover and “Race for the Prize” climax.
The headliner’s final message to Sol Summit’s inaugural audience far from spoken, just a retrospect on the past two days via yet another Coyne-sized balloon, the words “Fuck Yeah El Paso.”
Joaquin Madrid is a writer and may be reached at [email protected].
