For Los Lobos, the Sound is the Show

From Boston Globe
By Jonathan Perry, Globe Correspondent | November 20, 2006

Encircled by a slow, simmering sound that felt like the aural rendering of either a gathering storm or a man being pushed to his psychic breaking point, or both, Los Lobos singer-guitarist David Hidalgo sang softly, as if a mantra to himself, Saturday night. “Hold on, hold on to every breath, and if I make it to sunrise, do it all over again,” came the words, amid a tribal rattle of percussion and the subtle throb of guitars. “Now I’m killing myself just to keep alive, killing myself to survive.”

The song, “Hold On,” about an immigrant’s back-breaking labor in the fields, was from the veteran Los Angeles band’s new “The Town and the City,” and the exquisite tension conjured by the six musicians onstage at Avalon was a riveting highlight in an evening spiked with
many. That Los Lobos is still making music into its fourth decade together is perhaps less surprising than the fact that the Mexican-American band is still making music this powerful, this provocative, this good.

While it lacks the personal charisma or onstage dynamism that mark most great bands — the staid, visually bland ensemble is made up of musicians rather than performers — Los Lobos’s vibrancy and personality lies almost completely inside its deep, richly textured catalog of sound. When it came to the music itself, the band’s set overflowed with personality, heart, soul, and an all-encompassing stylistic reach that embraced ’50s-style rock and soul (“Evangeline”), muscular roots-rock (“The Road to Gila Bend”), salsa-spiced grooves (the Spanish-language sung “Chuco’s Cumbia”), and just about everything in between.

For every soul-searching anthem such as “Hold On” or moonlit sonata in the barrio (the sensual, accordion-accented “Kiko and the Lavender Moon”), there were joyful party jams like the reggae-tinged “Maria” and the Bo Diddley-meets-Buddy Holly bop of “Bertha.” The latter workout weaved together several generations of pop as the band’s front line of guitarists — Hidalgo, Cesar Rosas, and Louie Perez — took the tune from sock hop to Woodstock, tussling and tossing notes back and forth until the whole band had locked into a jam reminiscent of the Allman Brothers and Grateful Dead at the Fillmore.

With Boston’s very own R&B shouter, Barrence Whitfield, gleefully bounding onto the stage for an encore guest spot, Los Lobos proceeded to tear into a holy trinity of covers that sounded as if they had been beamed down from some cosmic classic-rock jukebox in the sky: Neil Young’s “Cinnamon Girl”? Check. Jimi Hendrix’s version of “Hey Joe”? Check. Cream’s “Sunshine of Your Love”? Check. That settled it: Los Lobos was, at that moment, the best wedding band on the planet.