Los Lobos still reveling in ‘peak powers’ with live shows covering a half-century of music

Blending traditional Mexican and Latin American music with rock and blues, the iconic East L.A. band plays a sold-out show later this month at The Acorn. The interview by writer Dave Gil de Rubio.

 

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Founded in 1973 by high school classmates David Hidalgo and Louie Perez, Los Lobos has carved out quite a niche for themselves as a quintessential American heritage band.

For the past half-century-plus, the quintet has built a legacy with a unique sound that leans heavily into a mix of rock ‘n’ roll, blues, country, Tex-Mex and soul spiced up by healthy doses of Latin flavors including cumbia, boleros and nortenos.

For Steve Berlin, the “new guy” in the group who signed on in 1982, his journey started with him being a fan caught up in the buzz Los Lobos had after a legendarily disastrous experience opening for Public Image Limited in Los Angeles during the latter’s 1980 tour. Berlin remembers the story well.

“When they did the Public Image Limited show, it was infamous,” Berlin recalled in a recent interview. “During that era, they had long hair, long beards and were wearing serapes. These weren’t costumes — they wore what they would wear to a fancy folkloric show, so it was like waving a red flag at a bunch of bulls.

“People went crazy at that first show, throwing [crap] at them and spitting at them — you know, that whole wonderful punk rock experience.”

But it would be at a show Los Lobos played at The Whiskey A-Go-Go that really caught the attention of the music scene and Berlin, when he was still playing saxophone as a member of The Blasters.

“The first time Lobos played for real in front of people with electric instruments was opening for The Blasters in 1980 at the Whiskey,” Berlin explained.

“They’d shaved, cut their hair and looked relatively like everyone else. It was kind of mind-boggling how amazing it was that there’s this band from 15 miles away. They may as well have been from 15 galaxies away for how unusual it was.”

Berlin added: “That night basically started my life in some respects. That was the first time I ever saw Los Lobos. It was kind of a big deal for The Blasters and was basically Los Lobos’ coming-out party even though the band had been together for seven years playing in East L.A. At that point, I wasn’t in the band yet, but every opportunity to play with them, I would.

“They very graciously let me produce a couple of things early on. I started with the ‘By the Light of the Moon’ EP and by the end of it, I was in the band. That’s why I’m not on the album cover picture because I was still in The Blasters at that moment. It happened pretty quickly.”

Fast forward to 2026 and Los Lobos continues to tour the country, with an upcoming, sold-out Michigan concert at The Acorn in Three Oaks — one of the smallest venues they’ll be playing this fall.

The band also continues to lean into the super power they’ve possessed throughout a career that’s found them topping the “Billboard” magazine charts, winning a handful of Grammy Awards and getting inducted into the Austin City Limits Hall of Fame.

WITH SO MUCH MATERIAL TO CONSIDER, SET LISTS A GOOD CHALLENGE

With a canon consisting of 17 full-length albums and counting, Berlin admits making set lists have become a good challenge given the amount of material the band has recorded over five-plus decades.

“We try to make it an overview as much as we can within the 75 to 90 minutes that we’re doing,” Berlin explained. “We’re not pretending to visit every album, but we’re trying to do something that speaks to all of it and hope that people are happy in the end.

“My favorite songs are ones where we stretch out and there’s room to screw around. Those are the most fun to me — ‘The Neighborhood’ and ‘Mas y Mas.’ Depending on how we’re feeling, sometimes they’ll take an unexpected turn. For me, I always like when we venture off into the unknown, but we’re not Phish. It’s not built-in. Sometimes it happens and sometimes it doesn’t and depends on how we’re feeling and so forth. I think that’s the stuff I really like.”

The band just released a new single, a cover of Neil Young’s “Cinnamon Girl,” and there’s been work on a “Native Sons” documentary (named after the band’s 2021 all-covers album of the same name). Helmed by Doug Blush (who edited 2013’s “Twenty Feet from Stardom”) and director of photography Pierre Justy (who’s shot several Los Lobos album covers), the film was supposed to come out four years ago, but finding money to bring it across the finish line has been the challenge.

“It’s just hard to find funding for any art in the world right now,” Berlin said. “The way it goes with most documentaries, they started it without all the funding they needed and now they’re trying to finish it. My hope is that it’ll see the light of day.

“It’s been the better part of four years that we’ve been waiting for it to happen. Doug and Pierre’s bona fides are strong. It’s not like they are amateurs or have not done it before. It’s just really, really hard to find money. The editing and finishing are not cheap — it’s expensive. We’re hoping one day soon they say it’s done and we should come watch it.”

The band also recently collaborated with long-time friend and alt-country/Americana artist Steve Earle on his newly released single, “Volver A Ceyala.”

And, of course, the road is a place Berlin and his musical brothers are comfortable residing in for the time being.

“Obviously, every concert is a bit of a look back because we’re playing songs we’ve played before, but there is a bit of nostalgia,” he said.

“But I think we’re operating at peak efficiency and a chance for folks to catch us at the top of our game. I just know we’re not planning to stop anytime soon.” – By Dave Gil de Rubio, Last Word Features

VIDEO: Los Lobos (Live)

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