Los Lobos

Photo by John Anderson

Los Lobos

"Say hello to Roky Erickson," nodded David Hidalgo. By that point, the Los Lobos singer/guitarist had already had a shot or two, his Stella Artois chaser about to sustain a workout in the last third of a 90-minute set that ended with one of rock & roll's purest tenors looking a little bleary, worse for wear and tear. Wearing and tearing had been the name of the game, too, Hidalgo and Louie Pérez, who spent almost the entire set – the second of two sold-out shows Saturday night – out from behind la batería on third guitar, throwing down blues solos like Buddy Guy and Jimmy Page, respectively, on what had begun as the Temptations' "Papa Was a Rollin' Stone." Traffic haunt "Dear Mr. Fantasy" became the beloved East L.A. institution's "Chuco's Cumbia," classic rock and traditional Tex-Mex honked as one between Hidalgo's accordion, Steve Berlin's baritone sax, and Cesar Rosas' wolfish vocals and predatory Strat. "A tribute to Ritchie Valens!" called out Hidalgo, La Bamba's "Ooh! My Head" fatback and lo-fi and delivered at a gallop before one of the lifetime quintet's best Mexican nationals, "Estoy Sentado Aquí," raised 1988's La Pistola y el Corazón. "Cumbia Raza" rocked harder than the Fillmore. Such hallowed halls are generally bigger than the 300-capacity One World Theatre so that even the five Los Angelenos seemed taken aback by the venue's intimate size. Dizzying opening run "Let's Say Goodnight," "Los Ojos de Pancha," "I Got to Let You Know," "Kiko and the Lavender Moon," "I Wan'na Be Like You (The Monkey Song)," and mean "Dream in Blues" demonstrated Rosas' Jungle Book brute ready and able to rattle the cage of such a tony room. Closing the night nodding to the Grateful Dead with the explosively hoary one-two of "Not Fade Away" into "Bertha," Los Lobos became King Kong.