There’s tailgating, and then there’s the converted school bus-anchored, meat-grilling, dance-club-level-DJ-ed, next-level tailgating the Orange Fanaticos bring to a Dynamo match.
That’s true even on a Friday, when there’s not much time between the end of the workday and the opening whistle to navigate Houston traffic and get to BBVA Compass Stadium. Revelers find their way to the adjacent parking lots with canopies and beer and portable sound systems that look more like generators than boom boxes.
The Orange Fanaticos — a diverse group of fans who have been tailgating together since the Dynamo’s first years in Houston — boast a set-up that dwarfs all other Lot C tailgates.
And this past Friday, they gathered on a momentous occasion in the team’s history. The night marked the fifth anniversary of the new downtown stadium that’s helped shaped the Dynamo identity. But it also would turn out to mark the Dynamo’s ascension to tie at the top of the Western table.
Robert Vasquez, the Fanaticos’ ringleader, bought a 1994 school bus for $3800 some years back, and has since been transforming it into the centerpiece of their tailgates. He painted it black, and invested another $3000 into upgrades, including a grilling station that attaches to the side of the bus and festive disco lights in the bus’s interior for nighttime revelry.
He says the group is about friendship, feeding each other, and having a good time. His highlights as a Dynamo fan includes road trips to see both championships, and being selected as a Fan of the Match by the club last year. That got him the honors of carrying a flag and leading the players out onto the field.
That was also an honor bestowed upon David Frankfort, attending this past Friday’s tailgate with his wife Karen, who Robert jokes “married into our family.” Karen says when they met on Match.com seven years ago, she didn’t know anything about soccer. Now she’s a loyal, jersey-wearing fan who happily attends home and away matches with her husband. David’s gone as far with his fandom as to create a kilt with a Dynamo-themed tartan and register it with the Scottish Register of Tartans.
Orange Fanaticos started when David’s tailgate merged with Robert’s during the 2007 season. Though some of them started their fandom as members of the Texian Army supporters’ group, they broke off to do their own thing, built more around relaxed pre-game gathering and sitting in Section 110 behind a corner flag on the supporters’ end.
Honduran-born Mario Lopez, at BBVA Compass on Friday with his wife, Leyla, showed love for both club and country with a custom-made, half-and-half Dynamo-Honduras jersey. Originally created to support Dynamo midfielder Boniek Garcia, it served as a fitting testament to a multinational squad now boasting four Hondurans. He had the idea and contacted a tailor friend to make it; he notes, “It was worth sacrificing two original jerseys.”
Photo by Phil West
Meanwhile Tony Lopez, a Fanaticos member who handles DJ duties, boasted an elaborate set-up that included a mixing board and an Apple laptop. Between vapes, he explained that he used to DJ professionally, and is now getting back to his roots. Though he plays an eclectic mix that stretches from Toby Keith to Tejano, his sweet spot is 1980s dance club fare that includes deep cuts by the likes of Boytronic and the Communards.
At one point, a Houston transit police officer came over to talk to Lopez. Was it a request to turn down the music? No — the cop loved what he’s playing, and said that it was the type of music he listened to upon graduating from the Marine Corps.
Inside the stadium, the enjoyed one notable new gathering option for the 2017 season: the Tecate Social open-air bar, built above the 100 level on the stadium’s south end. Reminiscent of Avaya Stadium’s large outdoor bar “LOBINA,” Tecate Social has a railing where fans can watch the action and rest their drinks. (It’s also where fans can order Dynamo-jitos, Dynaritas, and frozen mango margaritas in orange-tinged Mason jars.)
The other end of the stadium, meanwhile, houses Zona Naranja, the upper-deck set of three sections housing the team’s three main supporters’ groups. El Battalon, the team’s black-clad, barra-styled supporters’ group, stood in the middle, their energy dominating the section. They featured three trombones, a saxophone, three trumpets, and an assortment of drums, including three giant bass drums each weighing at least 40 pounds, the largest spanning a full 36 inches in diameter.
Photo by Phil West
Jose Solis, who plays a drum with a 28-inch head he calls “el Aguante” (“stamina” or “resistance”), is proud that they provide the musical heartbeat for a true “full 90” experience. They begin each match with “We Are Orange,” taking its repeated “Forever We Are Orange” chant six or eight minutes into the first half. They then work in other songs throughout the match, with similarly insistent, repeated phrases — usually in Spanish — with each song sustained for as much as 10 minutes.
They also lug their gear in and out for each game, which, while rough on those with the bass drums, allows them to process in and out of the stadium and energize fans. “We’re rowdy on the way in and rowdy on the way out,” Solis boasts.
All of this energy worked especially well on Friday night, when the Dynamo bagged a 2-1 victory over the Whitecaps to extend 2017 home record to six wins and a draw. That unbeaten home form has vaulted them atop the Western Conference standings, currently tied on points with Sporting Kansas City and, to make their rivalry even more delicious this season, FC Dallas.
When Cubo Torres slotted home the 68th-minute penalty kick that proved to be the margin of difference, fans around the stadium jubilantly threw orange streamers. The ones from the upper deck spilled over into the lower deck seats and among celebrating fans in the Tecate Social. The Texian Army unfurled their signature black, white, and orange Texas flag they use to herald each goal. El Battalon broke from song to cheer, and then went into another song.
At match’s end, the crowd began to make their way out of the stadium. But the Fanaticos headed back to the bus, producing a wide-screen TV (because of course they have one) to catch the post-game show.
But the stadium didn’t empty out entirely right after the whistle. The El Battalon band assembled in the stadium concourse and began playing. A group of fans gathered around, some with their phones out to capture video, some immediately moved to dance.
They began an impromptu parade shuffling down the curved pathway, with some of the dancers filing in behind them. One girl, riding piggyback on her dad’s shoulders, put her fingers in her ears to dampen the volume, but was smiling broadly all the same. For a fifth anniversary celebration match that ended happily, not everyone there was ready for the celebration itself to end.
