Intense, Passionate Guzman Leaves Troubles Behind

Demonstrating her resilience after a year of scandal, pop-rock singer Alejandra Guzman gave an impassioned performance Wednesday night, reminding her local fans why she’s considered Mexico’s la reina de rock (queen of rock).

Guzman, a perennial sex symbol across much of Latin America, brought a tropical forest fantasy-themed stage production complete with half-nude fluorescent-painted dancers to Anaheim’s J.C. Fandango. There, she crooned and wailed some of her best-known bluesy dance pop-rock hits to an 800-person capacity crowd.

The performance was one in a 19-date U.S. tour, with stops at the House of Blues in West Hollywood on Saturday and Sunday. (Saturday’s shows are sold out.)

A gifted dancer, the 30-year-old raspy-voiced singer relentlessly moved around the confines of the small stage, kicking up a leg to punctuate some of the sexually aggressive lyrics or sensual whirling when a guitar or piano solo broke out.

Many of the songs Guzman performed are from her latest CD, “Laguzman,” featuring live versions of songs from the seven albums she’s recorded during her 10-year career. Musical arrangements played Wednesday hinted at a more serious sound she says she plans to move toward with her next album.

With the exception of one technical glitch that spoiled the mood of one of her most loved songs, “Hacer el Amor con Otro” (To Make Love With Another), Guzman’s intensity as a performer and her overt sexiness onstage flowed smoothly for the two-hour show.

Although she played mostly her hits, it wasn’t difficult to make the connection between the splashy fantasy world she created onstage--what with masked dancers recalling pixies--and her troubles in the real world. She performed “Angeles Caidos” (Fallen Angels), from her 1993 CD “Libre” (Free), and “Loca” (Crazy) and “Mentiras” (Lies), from her new CD. (“Mentiras,” a slow-building rock ballad, was written by Argentine rock pioneer Miguel Mateos.)

As the daughter of 1960s Mexican pop icons Enrique Guzman--a rock en espanol trailblazer--and multitalented performer Silvia Pinal, Alejandra Guzman has been in the spotlight since childhood. Early this year she was under a darker light. She contended with a scandal involving her newlywed husband, a U.S. businessman who was jailed after admitting to trafficking drugs. Later in the year, her 7-year-old daughter, Frida Sofia, was the target of a kidnapping attempt in Mexico City. All this on the heels of her statement on national television that she had conquered her dependency on drugs in 1997.

“I see life and people a little differently now,” she said in an interview before the Anaheim show. “So I interpret songs more intensely. When I go out onstage, I transform. I take my heart, not my mind.”

Her bombastic exit from the stage took fans back to her first album, “Bye Mama,” with the very popular “La Plaga” (The Plague)--a reference to the contagious nature of rock ‘n’ roll--driving home how a musical journey can suspend reality momentarily.