Pond Showcases Latino Icon : Event: Juan Gabriel show represents venue’s first big venture geared to county’s biggest minority group.

In The Pond of Anaheim’s first big-league venture into the Latino market, Mexican crooner and pop idol Juan Gabriel opened Saturday night in a flash of smoke and light to a crowded house of screaming fans.

The Pond has been the site of a mariachi festival, but this was the first pop event geared almost exclusively to a Latino audience.

“It’s fabulous. It’s a great privilege to have an artist of this magnitude here,” said 31-year-old Patricia Patino, who eagerly awaited the first number arm-in-arm with her mother, Guillermina Leon.

“It’s the first time I’ve been to the Arena and I said, ‘I’m not going to miss this chance.’ There are enough Latinos living in this part of the county, so we hope this isn’t the last time,” said Patino, who moved to Orange from Mexico City eight years ago.

Saturday, Juan Gabriel walked onto The Pond’s square stage in a modest blue suit, under flashing green and fuchsia lights and rising smoke.

Well after the show began, people of all ages continued to stream into the arena. Some came in sequins and formal lace gowns. Others were in denim shorts and cowboy hats. They were families with small children, young couples on dates, grandparents and small packs of teen-age girls with chaperones.

“It makes me feel great,” said Graciela Esquivel, 36, of Placentia. “A lot of people are dying to see him. For all Latinos, he’s a Number 1 performer.”

The 42-year-old Latin pop icon has played to sold-out shows at the Universal Amphitheatre, and a 1990 concert at Santa Ana Stadium drew 8,000.

Last year, 75,000 fans packed the Rose Bowl in Pasadena for a spectacle that rivaled a Michael Jackson’s performance in splash.

Juan Gabriel--who uses only his two first names and no surname--was hoisted through a hole in the center of the stage for his opening act, wearing a golden cape.

The pop star has written more than 600 songs, mainly romantic ballads, many of which have been recorded by other artists, and has sold more than 15 million albums worldwide.

His dip into mariachi and ranchera music give him a traditional appeal, and even the raw Mexican rock band, Maldita Vecindad, does a hard-core cover of Juan Gabriel’s “Querida. “

Juan Gabriel was raised from age 2 in an orphanage in Ciudad Juarez in the state of Chihuahua after his father died and his mother went to work as a housekeeper and was too burdened to care for him. He began his recording career in his late teens.

The Rose Bowl show was a benefit for an orphanage that the singer opened in Chihuahua in 1987.

In a break from the traditional mainstream Latin romantic pop, Juan Gabriel draws on his childhood experiences to present a softer, more sensitive image.

His soft side attracts die-hard fans such as Vicky Ortega, 40, of South Gate, secretary of the L.A.-based “Club Amigos Unidos de Juan Gabriel.”

Ortega came to the Pond Saturday with her husband and a Volkswagen bus full of friends and relatives, who geared up for the evening listening to Juan Gabriel CDs and enjoyed tortas, tostadas and beer in the parking lot while swapping stories about their idol.

Ortega’s fan club has about 20 members--most of them women. They celebrate his birthdays, travel to Texas, Las Vegas and Tijuana to catch his shows, and volunteer in his honor at Ninos del Barrio, an L.A. children’s advocacy group.

“He helped me a lot. I was a solitary person in my teens and early 20s,” said Ortega, who brought the club’s trademark white and red satin jacket to wave at the stage Saturday night because the summer heat kept her from wearing it.

“I got to know him through the radio and he got to me through his music. He kept me going.”

Ortega’s friend, 38-year-old Rosa Vasquez of Maywood, got hooked on the star in junior high, when he was barely known and played The Million Dollar, a popular Los Angeles nightspot.

“If you have a problem in love, once you get in there, you forget about it,” said Vasquez. “He’s our star.”

“As a Hispanic you feel proud,” added Juanito Ortega, Vicky’s husband. “The first Hispanic to sing at the Rose Bowl was Juan Gabriel. This is a great thing to come down to Orange County and see Juan Gabriel here, for the first time.”

Tuesday, Juan Gabriel’s new album, “Gracias por Esperar” (“Thanks for Waiting”) is scheduled to be released on BMG International, a U.S. release of his first studio album in eight years.

The record has already sold more than half a million copies in Mexico, and the single, “Pero Que Necesidad” (“But What is the Need?”) has been playing for more than a month on Spanish language radio.

“It talks about a lady who he wants to be with, but he knows she is not for him,” said Juanito Ortega. “His music, once you start listening to it, it will transport you. It will take you to another dimension. You feel part of him and part of everyone else.”

For Willie Rodriguez Sr., 72, of Covina, and his on, 37-year-old Willie Rodriguez Jr. of Ontario, Saturday’s concert brought a touch of nostalgia.

The pair, from Ciudad Juarez, lived down the street from the pop star and used to see him perform at the Noa Noa--a little nightclub that the performer later immortalized in a song of that title.

“He is one of the greatest Mexicans who have ever been,” said the elder Rodriguez, who was treated to the concert by his son as a Father’s Day gift.

“In the world, he’s in the top 10,” said Rodriguez Jr. “I think it’s good he came to Orange County. There are a lot of Latino families here.”