The Mavericks to Add Second, All-Spanish Language Show to 2021 State Fair Visit

The award-winning band The Mavericks will perform a second show at the 2021 Great New York State Fair, with all songs being sung in Spanish. The Chevy Court show will take place at 2 p.m. Sunday, September 5, prior to their 8 p.m. show, which will be their regular concert performance. All shows in the Chevrolet Music Festival are free with $3 admission to the Fair.

Troy Waffner, Fair Director, said, “We noticed that The Mavericks put out an album last year that was entirely sung in Spanish. We began bringing Spanish language performers to our main stages in 2019 and this seemed to be a great opportunity. We asked the band and they said yes. We’re excited about this because we are committed to providing a lineup of performances that provides something for all New Yorkers. I should add that we will have two Spanish-language shows this year in addition to performances during Latino Village Weekend.”

The Mavericks released En Español last August, at the end of a creative journey that took the band to Cuba for a Public Broadcasting Service special on Cuban music and culture. Lead singer Raul Malo’s parents emigrated from Cuba before Malo was born. Combining new songs from The Mavericks with their interpretation of classics of the Latin-American songbook, the album debuted at #1 on Billboard’s Latin Pop Albums chart and received wide best-of-year picks from NPR, Rolling Stone and others.

“I was thrilled when we got the call that the Fair wanted us to do an all-Spanish show. I was like, ‘Really? All right!’ That’s a beautiful thing. We’ve gone through so much Latino and immigrant bashing the last couple of years and that’s enough of that, said Raul Malo, lead singer of the Mavericks in an interview for the Fair’s podcast to be published soon. “Any chance you get to expand on that or take down just one more little brick out of that wall, we’re going to do it and do it proudly. Good on the State Fair for having us do this.”

The show takes place during the four-day Latino Village Weekend, a mini-festival of food, music and culture that takes place around the Talent Showcase Stage near the Youth Building. It runs the last four days of the Fair, September 3-6.

The new Mavericks show joins a lineup of more than 50 national touring shows presented in the Chevrolet Music Festival, the largest free music festival at any state fair in America. Shows announced to date include:

Chevrolet sponsors concerts at the Great New York State Fair.

Thanks to the successful efforts of New Yorkers to battle COVID-19, the Fair will be open with no restrictions on attendance. Safety guidance can change and prospective fairgoers are advised to follow the Fair’s social media sites, sign up for the Fair’s email newsletter, or closely follow the Fair’s website to get the latest developments.

Founded in 1841, the Great New York State Fair is America’s third largest state fair. The Fair showcases the best of New York agriculture, provides top-quality entertainment and is a key piece of Governor Cuomo’s CNY Rising strategy of growing the Central New York economy through tourism. Fair attendance is up more than 46% since the beginning of more than $120 million in investments, with 1.33 million people attending the Fair in 2019. The 2021 Fair runs from August 20 to September 6.

The New York State Fairgrounds is a 375-acre exhibit and entertainment complex that operates all year. Find the Great New York State Fair on its website, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram and enjoy photos from the Fair on Flickr. Also, New Yorkers are invited to send their ideas for the Great New York State Fair to statefairideas@agriculture.ny.gov.

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