PHOTOS: Festival La Onda Made a Star-Studded Debut in Napa

For decades, Los Ángeles Azules have opened their live performances with the refrain “de Iztapalapa para el mundo” (“from Iztapalapa to the world”), a message that reflects how their flavor of cumbia from Iztapalapa, Mexico City has become a global institution.

But at their Sunday performance at the first-ever Festival La Onda at the Napa Valley Expo, the group shared with the audience of thousands a slightly different message: “de Iztapalapa para Napa” — “from Iztapalapa to Napa.”

Indeed, Iztapalapa had reached Napa. And so had the Latin American diaspora. On June 1-2, La Onda filled Napa Valley with a star-studded lineup of Spanish-speaking artists. The creators of the event — the same team that produced BottleRock just a week before — wanted to create a major music festival dedicated to the Latino community of the Bay Area.

And they succeeded.

Reggaetón star Farruko had the crowd jumping on Saturday with hits like “Pepas” and “La Tóxica.” Chilean indie artist Mon Laferte had fans in tears when she performed “Tu Falta de Querer” and “Si tú me quisieras.” Danna Paola — who began her career at just four years old on Mexican television and reached global fame after joining Netflix’s Élite in 2018 — proclaimed the start of Pride month with “TQ Y YA,” a queer love anthem that proclaims in its chorus “amor es amor y que nadie se meta” (“love is love and nobody else needs to get involved”).

The festival was truly blessed with its lineup of superstars from both rock en español and regional mexicano. Never has the Bay Area seen these two worlds come together so seamlessly. Rockero icons like Café Tacvba, Maná and Maldita Vecindad blasted timeless hits only a few couple hundred feet from where regional artists like Eslabón Armado, Junior H, Yahritza y su Esencia and La Arrolladora performed.

Fans at the festival were just as diverse as the genres represented on stage. Thousands of Latinos from all over the West Coast filled the Napa Valley Expo grounds. Perhaps only at Carnaval San Francisco do you see so many young Latinos and families together in one place. Rancheros, rockeros, bichotas, bellacos, homegirls, chavorrucos and more were all in the house.

While the majority of the crowd could be spotted with vaqueras and waving Mexican flags, there definitely were fans rocking Colombian vueltiao sombreros, Salvadoran jerseys and bandanas with Nicaraguan flags.

There’s no doubt now that a festival featuring only Latino artists — playing music essentially only in Spanish — can succeed in the Bay Area.

And most importantly, the Latino community of the North Bay was very well represented. Over a third of Napa County’s population identifies as Latino and the region’s world famous wine industry, which brings billions of dollars in investment and tourism, depends on the labor of tens of thousands of Latino and Indigenous workers.

Natalie Arana, who lives in Napa County and came with her husband, says she immediately signed up for the ticket presale when she heard a Latino music festival was coming. “It made me very happy that they’re finally doing something for us because there’s so many of us here,” she said, and added that her whole family works in the wine industry. “We are honestly the ones that make this place run.”

Will she be coming back next year?

“Of course! ¡Claro que sí!”