LOS TIGRES DEL NORTE FULL

To stories of struggle, they have added the signature norteño bounce - fast-paced polkas and waltzes punctuated by fluttering accordions and the bajo sexto (a type of 12-string guitar). Los Tigres’ repertoire includes songs about the border wall, about laborers who cross the border without papers, about Central American migrants who have to cross not only one national border to arrive in the U.S., but several.

And their work has frequently touched on the everyday lives of recent immigrants: the hard work, the yearning for home and the politics of being the outsider when the insiders don’t want you around. The band members, which since that first gig at Soledad Prison have been based in the Bay Area (San Jose, to be exact), are U.S. It is hard to overstate the importance of Los Tigres del Norte to Latin music and to norteño - not to mention to Latino immigrants in general. It is another little badge of prestige to add to the many that they have already accumulated. “Being here,” chimes in Jorge, “it’s the same type of test as being at the Auditorio Nacional in Mexico.” “And now, for the first time, we will play a concert here.” We have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame” - awarded in 2014. “Hollywood is important to Los Tigres del Norte,” adds Hernán. Quite inevitably, in 2014, the song also inspired a telenovela on Telemundo called “Camelia la Texana.” And it helped inspire the entire genre of narcocorridos (ballads about drug trade). It established Los Tigres’ reputation as a band worth listening to. With its cinematic lyrics, its impulsive female lead and its sampled sounds (gunshots ring out when Camelia dispatches her man in the final verses), the song was a runaway hit. She shoots him and disappears with the drug money. After their delivery is made, Varela announces that he is abandoning Camelia for another woman. He refers to the band’s first hit, “Contrabando y Traición” (“Smuggling and Betrayal”), from 1972, which told the story of Emilio Varela and Camelia la Texana, a pair of smugglers moving a load of marijuana from San Ysidro to Hollywood. “The first song that the public knew was about Camelia, who was going to Hollywood.” “Hollywood has a very important significance for us,” says Hernán, the group’s bass player, who is known for flamboyant coiffures dabbed with a prominent streak of white.

LOS TIGRES DEL NORTE FULL

“It continues to be one every time something like this happens.”īut the concert at the Bowl, in some ways, brings the story of Los Tigres full circle. “It’s a dream for us,” Hernandez adds, surrounded by his band mates, all wearing dapper suits: his brothers Hernán, Eduardo and Luis, and cousin Oscar Lara. States (except North Dakota and Montana). Those places include concerts in 48 of the 50 U.S.

“Who could imagine when we came here for the first time, that we would have an opportunity to play in all of these places,” says lead singer Jorge Hernandez, as he settles into a chair in a Hollywood Bowl green room. But on Saturday, just one day ahead of Mexican independence, Los Tigres del Norte will become the first norteño act to headline at the Hollywood Bowl. At this stage in their careers, it’s difficult to imagine another boundary that these elder statesmen of norteño might break.

Los tigres del norte