Unplugged El Tri Is as Electric as Ever

Saturday’s concert at the Palace by El Tri was billed as the veteran Mexico City group’s first “unplugged” show in Los Angeles, but despite the presence of pianist Lalo Toral (a former member of Los Locos del Ritmo, a pioneering rock en espanol band from the ‘60s) and violinist Zniev Paleta (a soloist with Mexico’s Philharmonic Orchestra), the concert--the first of two nights at the Palace--was as wild as any other Tri performance.

With the help of El Tri’s two lead guitarists, bassist-singer Alex Lora waived the usual chairs and intimate atmosphere of an acoustic concert for a 2 1/2-hour journey of blues-based rockers from the group’s 28 albums, with the sold-out crowd singing along and dancing ecstatically--no more and no less than at a regular El Tri show.

Lora did play three songs from “Hoyos en la bolsa” (Holes in My Pocket), El Tri’s upcoming album, and hit a showstopper with “Que regrese Salinas” (Let Salinas Return), a song skewering exiled former Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari, his favorite punching bag in the last few years.

Few artists from any country are as charismatic as Lora, and none in Mexico has been able to speak as he does to the masses of marginal urban kids who face a future that looks bleaker all the time. That ability to dissect the truth in a humorous and straightforward manner is what makes Lora great, plugged or unplugged.