Los Lobos Live in a restaurant

A double bill of TTB AND Lobos would be amazing!

Bet that only happens at places like Red Rocks though. When TTB (or Lobos) comes up here, we never get quite that lucky. Maybe there’s a good recording I can track down. When was that show?

 

When I saw the thread title I was hoping this was a new live album release

 

I must have seen them 15-20 times over the years. I'm a little tired of the same old stuff. But they always do a solid show (one exception), and David is a fantastic musician (he also plays violin!).

 

It should be!

This reminds me, does anyone here know of a live CD that came out ages ago called Chuy’s Tape Box, Vol.1?

I think it was supposed to be the first of a series of “vault” releases (A 1984 show, I believe) but Vol. 2 never happened and Vol.1 is, apparently, impossible to find. Didn’t order it when I had the chance, and then it was gone and the band’s own website acts like it never existed. I would like to find a copy.

There have been other official live releases over the years, and they’re OK, but I don’t feel they’ve ever quite captured the band at their best. The most recent, Disconnected in NYC, was basically “unplugged,” and really short. Two disc set, but disc 2 was only a handful of songs with plenty of wasted room.

 

It was a summer show in Raleigh, NC. If I had to guess, I’d say 2016. If memory serves me, they did a long version of Keep On Growing with some Jessica references thrown in. The South Mississippi All-Stars were also on the bill and IIRC they also joined the other two bands during their sets.

 

What a world we live in that after all these years they are still opening for a band like TTB. I don't know... that just doesn't seem right. But that's Los Lobos for you. At least they were showing each other mutual respect.

 

And accordian, of course.

I’ve seen them 9 times in venues large and small, as headliner, opener, or part of a festival. Pretty much always great but, yeah, of late a certain “sameness” has settled in. They don’t record as much as they used to (Gates of Gold, while a solid album, was 2015) and I think their studio output had been hit and miss for quite awhile.

Of course, as great as they are, they had their brief moment of stardom and they often play small venues now. And albums don’t sell anymore so I can see maybe why, after all these years, there’s not a lot of new songs and even tend to fall back on the same cover tunes. “Bertha” and “La Bamba” (with a little “Good Lovin’” thrown in) are guaranteed to get the crowd excited, so they keep playing them.

Cesar could stand to not do his “Cumbia!” bit at every show now too. That’s gotten tiresome.

But they are still a great live band, and we’ll always have their 80s, 90s and early 2000s output to enjoy.

 

Agreed, but at least it’s one helluva bill.

Likewise, in the early or maybe mid-2000s the Allman Brothers Band opened a bunch of shows for Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers.

Now TP was a treasure, of course, and The Heartbreakers a great live band. But it was still wrong that ABB should’ve been opening for anyone, even Petty! Tom probably would’ve agreed.

 

Wow! That’s something I’ve never heard them play. Gonna look for that. Thanks!

 

So many great bands still out there, but fly under the 'radar' of the media.
You gotta hunt for them sometimes. The only media news I hear in Australia
is when someone like Taylor Swift or Elton John is touring......
Never the great bands like Los Lobos, The Mavericks, Brian Setzer etc etc
Usually you hear about them after they have come and gone.
Roles have become reversed.... Go figure...?......

 

A small correction, Cesar's name is ROSAS.

As for Los Lobos playing with others, I've seen them perform with Neil Young, Robert Plant, Taj Mahal, Boz Scaggs, Zigaboo Modeliste, Jackie Greene, Calexico, Robert Randolph, Dave Alvin, Blondie Chaplin, lots of their opening acts, and others I'm sure that I'm forgetting.

As for David doing stuff with others, this is one of my faves, a guest spot with Los Cenzontles (who I've also seen a few times with Los Lobos!):

They have two shows upcoming with Tedeschi Trucks Band:

Los Lobos - Tour

5.21 - Sacramento, CA

5.25 - Salem, OR

Road trip!

Yes, know about the disc:

Los Lobos Set List

but was never able to procure a copy.

As for the series, maybe they ditched it in favor of these two (very highly recommended live sets, wish Cesar would do more):

Los Lobos Set List

Los Lobos Set List

I was at the shows for the Fillmore CD and DVD (which have different track listings). Here are the setlists from the two nights:

Los Lobos Set List

Los Lobos Set List

 

I agree that Los Lobos is a killer band and especially great live. I was reading this thread and decided to check their tour dates on line and got all excited because I saw that they were doing a date on 4/20/2019 at the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano. (I live in Orange County.) I went ahead and went to the website to try to buy tickets and it was the only act from now to September that was sold out! Bummer!

 

"Tickets may still be available via The Coach House Box Office. Please call 949-496-8930."

I don't care for the dinner theater venues myself. Why don't you just drive 80 minutes to see them at the Belly Up the night before? [EDIT: Oops, GA is sold out, too. Suspicious, quite frankly. You might have to get creative: scalp on the night, Stubhub, etc.]

BTW: They played Santa Ana - with X - less than 2 months ago.

 

Great band! Skilled and joyfull musicians, beautiful songs, especially the first 3-4 albums

 

The Chuco's cd is a prized possession. Killer show

I think part of the reason things have drifted away is that Louie came out from the kit. I talked to someone who is tight with the band once and he said that with Louie back there, they could do damn near anything as far as covers or stuff from way back in the catalog. If you look at earlier shows, the stuff they would pull out of the hat was amazing. I saw them almost do a great Iron man one night. There's a youtube clip of them doing the Zappa version of Directly From My heart to You. Killer covers of Allman Brothers, Traffic, Neil, Marley. Now they don't have a dedicated drummer so they are limited in what they can do on any given night.

 

The only part of a Los Lobos show that irks me is when Louie plays the drums. He just isn't good enough of a drummer, certainly not compared to Bugs or Cougar Estrada. I'd prefer for him to stick with guitar.

 

Just curious... What is it about a regular drummer that you think limits the band onstage?

 

In recent years I've only seen him play drums on very early songs that he originally drummed on. So that's fine with me, he has the feel for those songs.

 

I was told that Louie had a huge range of covers and catalog songs he could remember. I didn't say anything that Louie limited them at all

 

I had the opposite experience about 15 years ago. I saw Los Lobos and Dickey Betts' band at a 4th of July outdoor concert. Los Lobos were great, Dickey Betts, not so much unfortunately. It made me sad because I love the guy. Dickey joined Los Lobos for their encore, which was the Grateful Dead's "Bertha". It was immediately obvious that Betts didn't know the song, but that didn't stop him from playing it and generally screwing it up.

 

... they do a mash-up of La Bamba and, IIRC, Good Lovin' - although they didn't do La Bamba last time I saw them (and I was fine with that).

 

Best live band in the US. Seen them many times, all were awesome.

 

Your earlier post sort of made it sound that way. At least, that’s how I took it. Limiting in what songs they used to play, but don’t now, perhaps.

 

In the beginning, Cesar used to sing La Bamba (it actually was released on vinyl). When they are in a weird mood, the play La bamba as some sort of slow blues. Not one of their better songs

 

Great band