Pop Music Reviews : The Texas Tornados Blow Into Palomino

True to their name, the Texas Tornados filled the Palomino with a lot of hot air on Thursday. Also a stream of corny country, Mexican polkas, slow and fast R&B;, ‘60s pop hits, demented Lone Star psychedelia, hybrids of all of the above and, as ringmaster Doug Sahm might put it, good vibes.

Sahm, his longtime cohort Augie Meyers, Chicano country singer Freddy Fender and the great conjunto accordionist Flaco Jimenez comprise the Tornados, a San Antonio semi-supergroup in the vein of country’s Highwaymen and rock’s Traveling Wilburys.

It looks like a good way to get some idle careers back in gear, and it made much more sense in a sweaty nightclub than it does on their new album, where the music is often pedestrian and regressive. At the Palomino, the frolicsome foursome, supplemented by four other players, kept it loose and spirited.

They know more about personality than pacing, and they haven’t quite figured out whose solo comes next, but between Fender’s couple of hits (“Wasted Days and Wasted Nights,” “Before the Next Teardrop Falls”), Sahm’s Sir Douglas Quintet chestnuts (“She’s About a Mover,” “Mendocino”) and Jimenez’s explosive workouts, plus an encore version of the legendary Roky Erickson’s “You’re Gonna Miss Me” and visits from Harry Dean Stanton and Los Lobos’ Cesar Rosas, they kept the heat on. Pretty good for guys hovering around 50.

The hot air? Frequent bursts of self-congratulation for playing “real” music, and regular breaks for record-biz chatter (“The single didn’t chart, but the album’s going crazy,” Fender reported, as if heading a promotion meeting). Kind of blew the vibes. The Tornados and opening act Kelly Willis appear on Monday at the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano.