Bombasta

Walking up to see bombasta play at first friday* was a new experience for me. first i had never seen Bombasta play before and second I had never successfully driven to first friday. So I'm walking up with a friend I had not seen a long while and tell him how excited I am to see Bombasta because although we live in San Antonio, I feel, there isn't much of this music being played around here, especially geared toward a younger audience. That's when I realized he didn't know who Bombasta was and could not infer from the band name what he had gotten himself into.

All I could say to him before he could hear the music for himself was they were a latin cumbia rap band or something of that nature. We walk up to groups of families standing around slightly dancing to the loud surge of music the 9 to 10 members of Bombasta were producing. These kind of bands, like Jai Roots and Grupo Fantasma have a full band of at least 8 members with a brass section, strings, vocals and a variety of percussion. We even joked that Bombasta had a professional beer drinker, because one of the percussion members just drank a beer for most of the songs. Anyway further into the songs I share with my friend that I think the name bombasta must be a combo of the words cumbia and rasta, and he agreed that my theory made sense. We watched this group of 30+ men play, sing and dance while trying to entice the audience into singing and dancing along and wandered off for something to drink. After 10 minutes of waiting at Blue Star for a water we come back out to find out the band finished early. Darn.

but aside from that, this band is pretty good. I think they're good for San Antonio. Their songs are catchy and danceable. They bring family crowds and an older latin community like Jai Roots did. I felt like I could dance to their music, but I didn't feel the overwhelming desire to like I did with Grupo Fantasma at the Latin Music Fest at Main Plaza this past weekend. Instead I stood there with my friend that had never been to first friday feeling bad that I was making him stand with me and listen to this band that he is in no way interested in while this event he has never been to is going on around him. But going back to the band Bombasta likes to mix Spanish and English lyrics, singing and talking to the audience, with a strong spanish sound. They don't want people to get up and start dancing in a circle I think they would rather people kind of Salsa dance to their music, which is kind of confusing for a "cumbia" band but that just shows their style and range. I don't really know spanish, but I felt their songs were about their Mexican roots, they have songs that talk about barrios and la raza like most semi-political latin inspired small time bands do.
I want to emphasize that I would see this band again. Even though I feel like I wouldn't really ever want to meet these guys, I would go see them again, especially to see what kind of bands they would play with. Perhaps some other San Antonio local, similar artists.

*First Friday is an art and music event in Southtown San Antonio where there are many free music shows, art viewings and local merchandise for sale. Beer and Food are always on sale there as well, it is family friendly and a community growing experience.