Couldn't afford Coachella? Check out Lupepalooza Chuckfest

Weekend Coachella tickets carried a face value of $375. Some resold on Craigslist for twice that amount.

Then you have this weekend’s Lupepalooza Chuckfest on the grounds of a Calexico Swap Meet. It’s named after Chuck and Lupe, two Calexicans who died in a car accident. Tickets are $5.

“This is the first one, so we wanted to get as many to come as possible,” says organizer Leo Cital about the low ticket price. He arranged to get the facility, stage, P.A., fencing, and security donated. “We want families to come.”

All money raised goes to a recognized Calexico nonprofit called Friends of Kegger that fights diabetes. Eight bands from San Diego and greater Calexico play metal, reggae, norteño-pop, acoustic, and rock en español. North County–based reggae group Livn plays Saturday.

The show marks a homecoming of sorts for Livn lead singer Harvey Quintero of Escondido, a 1988 Calexico High grad. “It’s my first Calexico show since high school, when I played in metal bands.”

Quintero left the border town after high school. “I got into high tech, and there’s not much high tech in Calexico.”

Quintero started playing metal again five years ago, about the same time his son, also Harvey (bass/drums/keyboards), was jamming in an Escondido screamcore band called In Its Wake.

Then, three years ago, came the metamorphosis.

“We both started to get into reggae at the same time,” says the older Quintero. “We decided to mix our projects and see what we could come up with together.”

“There’s a lot more violence in metal music,” says Livn keyboardist/bassist Julio Guerrero (Livn bandmembers switch instruments). “Metal shows are a lot more tense. Reggae is all about a more peaceful state of mind.”

“But every now and then at practice we burst into demonic deathcore just to get it out of our system,” says the elder Quintero.

Unlike other father/son outfits, such as Van Halen or New York reggae band New Kingston where the father seems to run to show, the senior Quintero says it is different in Livn. “All six of us write the songs. It is more like a band of brothers.”

“People don’t know it’s my dad at first,” says the younger Quintero. “Sometimes it shocks people.”