After the first night that was filled with great music, dancing, singing, and the beautiful beach weather till 2 AM you’d expect everyone to be tired but it was the complete opposite. Fans were literally outside the gates waiting for doors to open so they could sprint across the beach as they were ready for another night full of reggaeton. And of course it makes sense as to why fans would arrive hours early before performers even took the stage because of the fact that Mexican super star, Peso Pluma, was headlining day 2. Fans wanted to be as close as they could to that stage and what better way to ensure that than grabbing your friends, drinks, and sprinting to that front barricade. But of course, hours before Peso Pluma takes the stage, we were lucky to take part in having some of the biggest latino artists perform for us throughout the entire day.
Amazing rising artists such paopao, Elena Rose, Bellakath and Latin Mafia had opened up for us day 2 of the festival playing some of the their biggest tracks such as, “En PR No Hace Frio” (paopao), “no quiero pelear” (Elena Rose), “Gatita” (Bellakath), and of course, “Patadas de Ahogado” by LATIN MAFIA. These songs had fans going from crying to dancing and the most amazing part about all of this was that these artists were performing during the day when the sun was still high and the party was only getting started. But of course, as the day goes by and the sun goes down, we begin to see the sky get a little darker and darker but that only means one thing, the artists are about to get bigger and bigger. To kick off the party at sundown was none other than Sech, a latin artist from Panama who not only has multiple hit songs but an incredible original voice. The special thing about seeing Sech perform live is not only his talent but it’s about how rare it is to ever see him live. The fact that Baja Beach Fest was able to pull off bringing an artist this rare was astonishing. Fans had been waiting all day in the sun with their panama flags and signs. The last time Sech had performed live at a concert was April 18th 2024 and before that was July 15th, 2023 so we were in for a huge surprise.
As Sech had started his set you quickly notice the music gets turned off and all the lights go off, and then a graphic goes on all over the screens of a chrome robot speaking to the fans asking them if they are ready and prepared. As the robot graphic leaves the screen, dancers had come out on the stage and then there he was right behind them. Sech, who had been a bit hiatus from the media for some time, walked his way to the front of the stage singing. I never thought I’d be able to watch Sech perform live, none less at the beach in Mexico, but it was happening for all of us. Sech played all his hit songs including his throw backs for his day 1 fans. But one song stood out the most and it’s when the music had slowed down and a piano appeared in the middle of the stage. As he makes his way to the piano and takes his seat he begins to play the piano to his by far most popular song, “Otra Trago” in which opens up with the piano playing and his iconic voice singing the lyrics, “ Sigue aqui tomando otro trago…” The crowd went crazy and of course when the beat was ready to drop he got the piano out of the way and began to rap the rest of it. Sech put on a show for his fans and made it seem like he had never been gone to begin with.
After Sech had performed, it was finally dark out and the party kept going. Performing after Sech is one of the biggest Puerto Rican artists of all time, Jhay Cortez also now known as Jhayco. Jhayco has had collaborations with every single artist you can think of in the latin music industry from Peso Pluma, Bad Bunny, Tainy, Becky G and more. Just like Sech, Jhayco has also taken some time to himself and stayed out of the spotlight. It also was not too long ago since Jhayco had postponed his tour so he could continue to work on his newest album. But seeing that he was one of the final pre-headliners, it had seemed as if the headliner had already arrived because of how many people had shown up to watch Jhayco perform his magic once again. Jhayco played his biggest hits and the song that stood out the most was his biggest hit to date with 2 billion streams on spotify, “DAKATI.” Jhayco had the crowd going crazy and even though Bad Bunny was not there to perform it with him live, the fans were loud enough to fill in singing his parts for him.
After Jhayco Becky G had taken the stage and she had by far the most personal performance of the entire festival. Not only did she sing her heartfelt songs to her fans but she paid a lot of tribute to her favorite artist Selena and covered her song for all the fans to sing along. Along with Becky G’s amazing performance, she shared a lot of great messages to her fans and her feelings of how much it had meant to be able to be on that stage for Baja Beach Fest. After Becky G had performed, she mentioned that someone she loves very much as a friend is about to put on a show for everyone to close the night. It was finally time, what every single person in that festival had been waiting for was finally about to happen.
The thing about Peso Pluma performing in Mexico is that there’s a lot of obstacles. Peso Pluma had taken a break from performing live at concerts in Mexico due to his security reasons. It was always a discussion from fans if he was actually going to show up or not. This was the biggest headliner that Baja Beach Fest has possibly ever had and this is the type of headliner that people single handedly buy a festival ticket for. As fans patiently waited to see if their hope had come true you suddenly could hear police sirens, helicopter noises, drones, and every security guard on their walkie talkies over the music being played by the DJ. It almost seemed as if a president had driven by the festival but the noises kept getting louder. But you start to really put it together and you realize that he is here, the man of the hour has arrived. The lights had turned off and suddenly you see the screens play over news broadcastings of news anchors talking about Peso’s pluma’s spark of attention from his Narco Corridos. Then more and more graphics flash and the words “PE$O” go on the screen as fireworks go off and the violin begins to play. And there he is sprinting across the stage to the very front doing his iconic dances. Peso Pluma begins the night strong and plays all of his hit songs for all his fans and of course he brings out multiple guests to help him sing his songs. Perhaps one of the most iconic special guests is when Peso had brought out Junior H and Oscar Maydon to perform their global song, “Rompe el Dompe.” He also brings out guests such as Netp Vegon and Tito Doble P. Peso Pluma has done an amazing job in his career of exploring multiple genres other than his Regional Mexican music and thai had allowed him to bring out even more guests such as Jhay Cortez to perform their reggaeton hit, “Ex-Special’ and his other EDM hit with DJ Snake called, “Teka.”
Day 2 was truly one for the books, to have amazing artists open up during the day than to continue to end the night with Peso Pluma who brought out of many guests to a concert in which we were never sure if he was going to make it. This was by far my personal favorite Baja Beach Fest performance, Peso Pluma really did live up to the hype and the fact that Baja Beach Fest pulled this off for all their fans was incredible and created a historic experience.
