My first date with my future wife was at the Warfield Theatre in San Francisco, to see Los Lobos. Her skill at whistling to hail a taxi on the way home impressed me.
My last date with my friend David was at Laguna Seca Raceway to see Los Lobos along with the Grateful Dead and David Lindley. Yeah, this isn’t the first time I’ve written about David or Los Lobos. It probably won’t be the last.
Last summer I learned that they would be at the nearby Stoughton Opera House this spring. Tickets were sold to members first. That meant I could pay $25 for the privilege of buying $75 tickets. I didn’t do it. Tickets sold out immediately.
They added a second show, on a Wednesday. Same deal. Again I opted out. Luckily, there were still tickets when they went on sale to the general public. They went on sale just before I went to the hospital with babesiosis, which might explain why, weeks later when the tickets arrived, I discovered I had purchased one ticket instead of the two I thought I’d bought.
So this week we had to decide which of us was going. We wouldn’t be re-living our first date from 36 years ago. My spouse had forgotten I’d bought the ticket last summer, so she said I should go. I told the woman in the seat next to me that she was in my wife’s seat. She was understanding.
They opened with my favorite song of theirs, “One Time, One Night” (which I posted before so I won’t again) and closed with a cover of the Grateful Dead’s “Bertha”, playing a sampling of their 50 years together in between. The encore set closed with The Rascals’ “Good Lovin'”. In between was the stripped-down rock of “Don’t Worry Baby”, the densely-layered “Kiko and the Lavender Moon” (which I’ve also posted previously) and the crowd-pleasing sing-along “Volver, Volver”.
Los Lobos were high school rock-and-rollers who formed a band shortly after graduation, under the leadership of Francisco González, a mandolinist and harpist. They played traditional Mexican music at weddings, quinceañeras, and other community events. Before their first album release in 1978, Gonzáles had moved on. He became the musical director of El Teatro Campesino and made custom strings for Mexican musical instruments. Conrad Lozano, David Hidalgo, César Rosas, and Louie Pérez continued as Los Lobos, adding Steve Berlin (of the Blasters) on saxophones (and later, keyboards) in 1984. By then they had picked up their electric guitars again and were forging a new sound building on the work of Ritchie Valens. Alfredo Ortiz currently tours with them on drums.
The band’s name (originally Los Lobos del Este de Los Angeles) is an ode to the norteño band Los Tigres del Norte (formed in Sinaloa – northwestern México – and later moving to San Jose, CA).
They may move a little more slowly (Conrad Lozano sat on the edge of an amp except when he stood up to sing) and have white hair, but they can still rock the house. (And they’re still younger than I am. 😉
Los Lobos celebrated their 50th anniversary by performing at their old high school on 11/23/2023. (I think they were all in the class of 1972, so it wasn’t their own 50th high school reunion.) I’m guessing that crowd was considerably younger than the one I saw Wednesday night.
[Tip to bicyclists: You don’t need a smart trainer for interval training. I am currently watching a concert. Pedaling cadence matches song tempo. Changing time signatures adds a bit of fun, like an unexpected hill or shifting winds. I jump up several gears during instrumental passages to increase the effort, downshift for vocals, and downshift further for a break between songs. Interval training with no headaches or need for a plan and I get to go to Los Lobos concerts two nights in a row. Since it’s still cold and wet, it beats a couple of hours outside.]
Los Lobos are still not in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Half-fast Cycling Club 