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Make way for 'El Rey': Vicente Fernandez one of Rabobank's biggest acts yet
| Tuesday, May 27 2008 5:13 PM
Last Updated: Wednesday, May 28 2008 10:06 AM
His royal vestments and crown are intricately embroidered charro suits and enormously brimmed mariachi hats.
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What: Vicente Fernandez, also known as “El Rey” (“The King”) of ranchera and mariachi music, live in Bakersfield.
Opening for him will be balladeer Paquita la del Barrio, a queen of song in her own right. The lyrics to her songs are a tongue-in-cheek celebration of feminism and a trampling of machismo under stylish heels. Her last local concert was at the Rabobank Theater May 2007.
When: 8 p.m. Saturday
Where: At the Rabobank Arena, 1001 Truxtun Ave.
Tickets: Sold out. Those desperate enough can check with the box office the day of the concert for any last-minute availability, which is not guaranteed. The box office opens at 10 a.m. Saturday.
Logistic considerations:
• No cameras or video allowed. Those with still or video cameras will be asked to leave them in their cars before they are allowed into the arena.
• It’s advisable to arrive 30 to 45 minutes before showtime. Consider traffic and parking and plan accordingly.
• Some English-Spanish bilingual staff will be available.
Photos:
Vicente Fernandez will perform to a packed house at Rabobank Arena on Saturday. Both masculine and sensitive, his style makes the ladies swoon. (Photo courtesy of Vicente Fernandez)
Mariachi and ranchera king Vicente Fernandez will perform in the round at the Rabobank Arena Saturday to a full house. Even at 68, Fernandez remains stylishly youthful and macho in his finely embroidered charro suits and mariachi hats. The gun holster at his side appears to warn others not to mess with the king. (Photo courtesy of Vicente Fernandez)
His throne is a brightly spotlighted stage.
And Saturday night, Vicente Fernandez, the undisputed king of mariachi and ranchera music, will turn the Rabobank Arena into his palace and fill it with some 10,000 of his local followers.
Tickets to the concert ceased to be available weeks ago. “It sold steadily from the day we went on sale (April 5),” said Shawn Brandon, the Rabobank’s director of marketing and sales. “Every single day we sold a ton of seats.”
And at $150 apiece for the best seats in the house — meaning the entire floor encircling the in-the-round stage as well as the arena’s lower bowl, according to Brandon — Fernandez’s show has already made Rabobank Arena history by selling the most expensive concert tickets in the venue to date.
“It had to be that way to get him here because he’s so big,” said Brandon, who added that the Rabobank had been working on trying to book Fernandez for 10 years. Fernandez’s runners-up for priciest seats: The Eagles with $125 best-seat tickets at their September 2005 concert.
KINGLY CHARISMA
Venezuelan-born Ricky Perez, program director for American General Media’s Spanish-language radio station “La Caliente,” KEBT 96.9 FM, is excited about finally getting to see Fernandez live on Saturday together with his wife and friends.
They have $75 seats.
“Vicente Fernandez is considered the living legend of mariachi music,” he said in Spanish. “You can compare him to Elvis and Elton John and even The Beatles. He is a phenomenon in the Hispanic world. And he has crossover appeal because he has performed all over.”
With a prolific career spanning more than four decades, at 68, Fernandez has recorded close to 100 albums and starred in more than 20 Mexican films. He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and has been nominated for the Grammys, Latin Grammys and the Billboard Latin Music Awards. In 2002, he was named Person of the Year by the Latin Recording Academy.
FATE FAVORS THE KING
Destiny may have had a hand in giving Fernandez a leg up, way up, into the level of fame he has attained by allowing him to live longer than other Mexican male ranchera singers of his caliber.
The much loved Jorge Negrete, Pedro Infante and Javier Solis, all ranchera idols who graced the airwaves and the silver screen when Fernandez was a youth, died in their 30s or early 40s within a span of about a dozen years. Fernandez, who was in his mid-20s and trying desperately to break in to the Mexican music scene at the time the last of them, Solis, died in 1966, suddenly started seeing doors open up for him.
A decade later, in 1976, his tug-at-your-romantic-heartstrings ranchera classic hit, “Volver, Volver” (“Return, Return”), gave the operatic-voiced Fernandez worldwide fame.
His fans, who often refer to him as “Don Vicente” as a sign of respect, haven’t stopped adoring and lauding him since.
“In concert he is the only artist, at his age, who keeps singing as long as the audience keeps (applauding and) asking him to sing,” Perez said. “That’s his nature: He is the king of music.”
MULTI-GENERATIONAL APPEAL
Entire families should be present at Fernandez’s concert Saturday. “We’re talking kids with their parents and the grandparents,” said Rebecca Viramontes, the Pico Rivera-based vice-president of operations for Hauser Promotions, which is promoting Fernandez’s current tour.
Perez himself said he became familiar with Fernandez’s ranchera ballads as a child because his father would listen to those songs, which have become timeless.
That story is repeated again and again at Hispanic family get-togethers, birthday parties and other celebrations where such classics as “De Que Manera Te Olvido?” (“How Do I Forget You?”), “Por Tu Maldito Amor” (“Because of Your Cursed Love”), “Tu Camino y el Mio” (“Your Path and Mine”) and “El Rey” (“The King”) are played. Many of Fernandez’s songs are nostalgic and melancholy, telling stories of forsaken love and of drinking to drown the pain. Invariably, those listening to these ballads often begin to sing along with the familiar lyrics that have become a staple of Hispanic music culture the world over.
LATEST ALBUM, LATEST TOUR
“I must say that Don Vicente is one of the few acts that can come year after year and pack a full house. And this year by far he’s been selling out more than other years,” Viramontes said.
For example, she said, on May 10, traditionally known as Mexican Mother’s Day, Fernandez played to a sold-out crowd at the San Francisco Cow Palace.
“We sold over 13,000 tickets and it was the highest grossing individual concert held at the Cow Palace in its history,” said Walter Haub, the venue’s chief executive officer.
Why such revved-up concert ticket sales?
“His last album, which is already having its second number one release, is a really strong album and people are responding to him and they want to see him live,” Viramontes said.
“Para Siempre” (“Forever”), which was released in September, is a collaboration between Fernandez as singer, and Grammy- and Latin Grammy-winner Joan Sebastian as writer/composer/producer.
“That, in part, is what gives the album its magic touch,” Perez said, “the mixture of those two great talents.
“Even nowadays, when CDs aren’t selling well, it’s a phenomenon that so many of Vicente Fernandez CDs have been sold.”