The last time Los Tigres Del Norte performed in the Bay Area, they played at the HP Pavilion, fer cryin’ out loud. So it’s a pretty big deal that the long-running superstar group—celebrating 30 years since their first album—has a scheduled concert at the 1600-seat Wells Fargo Center on March 11, 2012.
When I try to explain why I like Los Tigres del Norte to friends, I usually say something like “Duuuude, they’re the total gangsters of norteño music!” But the honest truth is that I don’t understand their lyrics unless I toss them into Google translate (my second-year Spanish is rough), or unless they’re explained to me, as in this fine primer on the group’s best immigration songs, courtesy of Amoeba Music, or this profile by Alec Wilkinson.
However, once translated, their songs tell marvelous, compact stories. Los Tigres del Norte’s most famous song is “Contrabando y Tración,” about a couple who smuggle marijuana across the border by stashing it inside their car’s tires. Once safely north, and paid from the delivery, the man declares that he’s leaving for San Francisco to hook it up with another girl. The woman pulls out a pistol and shoots him dead on the spot.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeGQvbfNApM[/youtube]
“Contrabando y Tración” was written by Angel Gonzalez, who, in interviews, emphasized the role of the female in the story. “I am a feminist, five hundred percent,” Gonzalez once said. “Woman is half the world, and what’s more, she’s the mother of the other half. In my songs, I always have the woman come out ahead. ‘Contrabando y Traicion’ was the first song like that, and then, it was also the first song about the drug traffic. There was nothing like it.”
Anyway, I have no idea how the Wells Fargo Center convinced Los Tigres del Norte to play such a small venue, but as I’m writing this, tickets are still available at $46-$88. You can buy them here.
.Los Tigres Del Norte are Coming to Santa Rosa
