A place known as

“Pico Landia”

Evelyn Martinez

Anthropology 102

Dr. Leanna Wolfe

10/14/2014

For this event one of my friend suggested that I wear cowboy boots and jeans. The event was in

Pico Rivera and she informed me that there would be a lot of dirt and a couple hundreds of people.

This event was held by plenty of Radio stations, the tequila brand Cassadorez and super markets

like Vallarta. The famous band La Arrolladora De Banda El Limon, Codigo Fn, Jorge Valenzuela

and many more artist would be there. Pico Rivera sports arena is where she took me but most people

refer to it as “Pico Landia” . Instead of it being a rave, or a regular concert, it becomes a spanish

rave and they added the Landia to make it seem that way.

Codigo FN was one of the famous bands that played first. Codigo FN is a corrido group. They have six

band members and they use accordions, guitars, and vocalist. They sing romantic songs, and some narco

corrido songs. Narco corrido songs are about drug trafficking and the life of a Narco.

The main vocalist for Codijo FN. This Picture had to be taken during there performance “Me Gustas Mucho”. The

entire crowd sang with this song with them. All the couples that went were dancing slow and closer to each other.

The sang described how lucky it is to be with someone, how much of a blessing it is to have that special person in

their lives and how they woulb be capable enough to give up their life. I saw a lot of emotions going through people

as they sang this song. One was being madly in love and the other one was being completely heart broken, and

wanting to drink there emotions away. All of this was expressed through this one Codigo FN song.

Los Alegres Del Baranco performed next. In this picture you can see the people that are inside the circle. The circle

that contains dirt. Couples were dancing to this song, and others that were just listening to this Norteno group. As

you can see, people have on their “sobreros” a cultural identification for them. They wear this “sobrero” to go with

their outfit. Most men wear a wrangler checkered shirt, Levis jeans and cowboy boots. The women had different

outfits. Some women had shorts and blouses with boots and others had jeans and a nice shirt.

La Arrolladora Banda El Limon was the last band to perform. By this time everyone was drunk, people were too close to each other, not being able to dance by the maximum amount of people that had entered the circle. As soon as the crowd heard that La Arrolladora was ready to perform , my ears exploded by all the insane screaming that people were doing.

“Mi Segunda Vida” by La Arrolladora was their newest song and everyone had to sing it. The crowd went crazy.

The people in this picture show how they recorded this song. The song describes a man who is in love with two

women and he cant live without both. One woman has his last name and the other is counting the days until he's

back with her. It was funny to see how some women sang and others stayed quiet.

I also got the change to experience

general admission and the VIP area. The

“VIP” section was to be away from the

crowd and still manage to see the bands

playing. In this picture the song that was

playing was “Para que se cansen ellas.”

The crowd was still going crazy and

people were being escorted out due to

the alcoholism they had. Some girls were

beyond drunk but because the songs had

affect on them. I saw people take shots

out of the bottle to this song. Maybe its

their way of cooping with the songs.

Pico Rivera Sports Arena is a place where Latinos come and listen to their cultural music. To be able to

dance and wear cowboy boots. This place isn't just a concert, its their cultural environment. Its where people

from all over California come and live their night. They come out with no voice, dirt all over and

“Sobreros” ruined by all the sweat, but can say that was one heck of a concert.

My friend describes this as her happy place. The place she comes to drink, dance, and sing from the top

of her lungs. She doesn’t come here to look for a soul mate, she comes here to love her “paisa” music, to

appreciate her Hispanic side and to dance her night away. Dance the night away on how her parents

taught her, not grinding or sexual, but moving to the beat with both her hands on the upper chest of a

man.