This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2017, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Los Lobos was down a wolf Sunday night, but even with one stray, the band can light the place up.
Cesar Rosas was a no-show for The State Room show, and the guitar player with the goatee and dark glasses, who also carries a significant share of the load on vocals, was missed.
Word at the venue was that Rosas didn't get on the plane for the band's gig. It comes after Los Lobos had to cancel two shows last week due to a family emergency.
That meant more heavy lifting for David Hidalgo on vocals with an assist from Louie Perez, who filled in on a few songs. It also meant the band had to call audibles and change up the set list on the fly.
Fortunately, when you have a group of musicians who have been playing together for more than four decades, they still managed to do much more than just get by.
Hidalgo can flat-out shred, and he makes it look so easy that by the time they finished up "Tin Can Trust" and went into "Come On, Let's Go," — a song they did for the 1987 La Bamba soundtrack (no, they once again didn't play "La Bamba" ) — the crowd was already hooting and shouting requests from the back.
The band wrapped up the opening set with "Matter of Time" and then broke into "Evangeline," a crowd favorite, that had just about everybody in the audience dancing — except for you, guy in the red shirt, who will be the only thing left standing when an earthquake levels Salt Lake.
Perez who had performed vocals on a cover of "Rebel Kind" earlier, sounding a little like Neil Young doing it, then did it again later on a cover of Young's "Cortez the Killer," reading the lyrics off a music stand until he lost his place near the end. Perez just kind of grinned and shrugged and said "Cortez was a killer," and the crowd loved it.
Their version of "Alone In A Crowd" sounded like vintage Replacements tune, and afterward, Hidalgo broke out the accordion for a few tracks — he can shred on the accordion, too, by the way. They ripped through a cover of Eric Clapton's "Have You Ever Loved A Woman," the best straight-ahead guitar blues of the night, which featured a burning sax solo by Steve Berlin.
Los Lobos came back out for a two-song encore, finishing the night with a cover of Marvin Gaye's "What's Goin On?" — their most political statement of the night, but an entirely appropriate one, as well.
The absence of Rosas seemed to throw off the chemistry some. Hidalgo seemed distracted and there was little interaction with the crowd, aside from the shoutout to Red Iguana for providing dinner for the night. But overall, the band was nimble enough and talented enough that they were able to pull off an electric evening.