Andy Has Just the Ingredients for Southland’s Melting Pot

You won’t see a concert more quintessentially Los Angeles than the one by Andy at Glendale’s Alex Theatre on Sunday.

The L.A.-based, Iranian-born Armenian pop singer was flanked on stage by a Caucasian female singer from Arkansas and two belly dancers of Mexican heritage--not to mention the Japanese American guitarist anchoring the band. And in the course of the show, Andy (full name Andy Madadian) sang in Armenian, Farsi, Urdu, English and Spanish while performing percolating mixes of Middle Eastern, Latin and Western pop.

But does that give Andy--one of the biggest stars in the global Persian-Armenian market--the right to sing “Hotel California,” a quintessential L.A. song?

On one hand, the celebratory tone he gave it was at odds with the Eagles’ condemnation of a soulless lifestyle. And the choice of the song itself (featured on Andy’s new album, “And My Heart . . .”) seems a blatant crossover move as his new manager, Miles Copeland--whose most recent triumph was putting Algerian singer Cheb Mami together with Sting--tries to expand Andy’s audience.

But that very celebration of cultural richness is what energized the boisterous concert and its gloriously gaudy excess of sounds and styles, enhanced by duets with several of his mentors and by an audience featuring full families--young children, their parents and grandparents--dancing in the aisles despite multilingual pleas not to. Forget the new Disney park; this is the real California experience.