During Viva Big Bend music festival this summer, Stephanie Bergara was overcome with emotion while performing Selena’s “Como La Flor.” It was the last song of the night for Bidi Bidi Banda—a tribute band honoring the late Tejano singer—and seeing Planet Marfa packed with people dancing and enjoying the music moved Bergara to tears.
“I thought about all the times we’ve played there and all the rooms we had gone to and all the parts of the journey of Bidi Bidi Banda that I’ve been through—Marfa, Alpine, Presidio, Fort Davis, Terlingua—every road in between,” Bergara says. “It’s been an eventful journey with a lot of peaks.”
That performance, which was part of the Big Bend region’s five-day music festival, might have been the last time the band will play in that area of West Texas. Bergara announced on Instagram last November that 2024 would be the last year of Bidi Bidi Banda’s touring performances. Meaning the band is retiring from traveling and scaling back the number of shows they perform each year.
“We’ve done some really cool stuff, but playing 70 shows a year is not conducive to the plans I have for myself and other members of the band,” Bergara says before performing at Railroad Blues in Alpine.
Bidi Bidi Banda formed 10 years ago with the sole intention of performing at Pachanga Latino Music Festival in Austin. It was a chance for Bergara, an Austin native, to venture out and honor the beloved Tejano singer by performing her music. But then the show offers started to come in. Bidi Bidi Banda was getting asked to play shows that were so beyond their dreams that they couldn’t say no. They have been on lineups with Billy Joel, De La Soul, and Pete Astudillo, who was originally in Selena y Los Dinos.
“The opportunities that have come my way because I had this idea to do this band 10 years ago are mind-blowing,” Bergara says.
Selena Quintanilla, known as the “Queen of Tejano Music,” was a Grammy-award winning trailblazer in the male-dominated music genre in the 1980s and early ’90s, until she was murdered by Yolanda Saldívar in 1995. She gained more mainstream success with the posthumous release of her English crossover album, “Dreaming of You,” and 1997 biopic starring Jennifer Lopez. Selena tribute bands have popped up in recent years—including Selena Forever Tribute Band from Dallas, The Como La Flor Band, and Anything For Salinas Band from California—celebrating Selena’s legacy by covering her hits, “Bidi Bidi Bom Bom,” Como La Flor,” and “Baila Esta Cumbia,” just to name a few.
Growing up, Selena was the first person Bergara saw on television who looked like she could be related. It hugely impacted her to see a Mexican American woman from Texas like herself look so happy while she performed on stage. During the early years of Bidi Bidi Banda, Bergara’s stage attire replicated the singer’s signature outfits, but now she leans toward her own personal style mixed with touches of Selena, always with red lipstick.
“I can forget everything else, but if I have the lipstick, I’ll be OK,” Bergara says.
Stepping away from Bidi Bidi Banda wasn’t an easy decision to make, she says, but Bergara shared that several of the band members, herself included, are releasing solo music. She performed at South by Southwest, Chingnona Fest, and the Health Alliance for Austin Musicians Benefit Day earlier this year. She says she’s burning herself on both ends trying to balance both music acts and being a mom, but it’s important for her to release her country music before losing momentum.
“There’s no time to wait to roll anything out,” Bergara says. “I have to keep going. My timeline and the way that I framed what I’m doing for the future is set up for me to not take a break. Taking a break in this industry is tough.”
One of Bergara’s memorable moments with Bidi Bidi Banda is playing at Marfa Lights Festival in 2015 at the historic USO building. It was the first time the band played in the same venue that Selena also performed in the late ’80s. During their 10-year trajectory, Bidi Bidi Banda has traveled across the country, from Chicago to Nashville to Los Angeles, sometimes performing on big stages such as the State Fair of Texas in Dallas and Blues on the Green in Austin. They’ve won multiple Austin Music Awards and recently opened for Charley Crockett in Hidalgo.
“When I go to bed on Jan. 1 after midnight, my hope is that I feel like I did everything I wanted to do with the band,” Bergara says. “And I’ve done almost everything I wanted to do so far.”
She hopes to return as a solo artist to Viva Big Bend and other places she’s gotten to play with Bidi Bidi Banda, but for now, the band is bringing the cumbia circle to as many fans as they can before December 31.
“This is the year that we’re saying yes to as many things as we can and doing things maybe we said we’d never do,” Bergara says. “That feels special. It feels like it’s a big year to do that.”
