El Tri Gets the Show on the Road

Mexico City’s blues-rock super group El Tri starts its 30th-anniversary tour of the U.S. and Latin America on Oct. 12. Though that’s a considerable length of time to have survived, the group showed signs in a tour warmup show Tuesday at J.C. Fandango in Anaheim that it might very well be around for a couple more decades.

In top form, the group’s inexhaustible leader, raspy-voiced, singer and bassist Alex Lora, 45, one of rock en espanol’s giants, took the multi-generation audience on a three-decade journey of the band’s work.

On the heels of a Grammy nomination for the band’s 29th album, “Cuando Tu No Estas” (When You Aren’t Here), El Tri is considered the Rolling Stones of Mexico--more for longevity than musical style.

The band’s 30th album is due for release Tuesday, and Lora’s grinding R&B; rock and politicized lyrics continue to help bridge nostalgia for their homeland and hope for the future.

It introduced four songs from the new album, “Fin de Siglo” (End of the Century) on the WEA Latina label. Though most of the material says the song remains the same for marginalized people of the world--El Tri’s audience consists largely of disaffected urban youth and their working-class parents--Lora’s ability to write with humor is not lost in the new songs.

El Tri (a nickname for the Mexican flag) possesses somewhat of a cult following in Spanish-speaking urban centers around the world, so even when it plays shows with little or no publicity, as was the case surrounding its dates Tuesday and Wednesday in Anaheim, word gets around.

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Southland fans, mostly wearing black El Tri T-shirts, drove from as far as San Diego and Bakersfield to pay $40 to see the rock legends. Javier Castellanos, the Anaheim venue’s owner who has brought just about every big name in rock en espanol to Orange County, cleared the tables from the 800-capacity nightclub to make sure everyone got in.

The audience wasn’t disappointed by a stimulating, nearly two-hour set that included some of El Tri’s trademark anthems: “Abuso de Autoridad” (Abuse of Authority), “Metro Balderas” (refers to a train stop in Mexico City), “Triste Cancion de Amor” (Sad Love Song).

On some songs, fans sang so loudly their voices overpowered Lora’s. He responded by pointing the microphone at them, then chiding them humorously later for not singing louder on some of the newer songs.

El Tri isn’t a guitar-heavy band, and Rafael Salgado’s wailing harmonica dominated most of the instrumental solos. Guitarists Eduardo Chico and Oscar Zarate, drummer Ramon Perez and backup singer Chela Lora--Alex Lora’s wife--demonstrated solid musicianship, following the singer’s cues.

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Few other Mexican rock artists--Saul Hernandez of rock group Jaguares, and perhaps tropi-rock band Mana--come close to working a crowd the way Lora does. He played J.C. Fandango with the same energy he shows in stadiums, connecting with fans in the club’s last row as easily as those he dripped sweat on in the front.

Tuesday night proved historic for the band as well. For the first time, Alex Lora yielded the microphone to his wife. With a similar scratchy voice, Chela Lora sang a number off the new album, “Gandalla” (colloquial for “exploiter”), to favorable audience response.

But then, there wasn’t anything Lora and El Tri could do wrong.