Los Lobos brings Eastside west

Four guys from East L.A. trekked clear across town to throw a backyard barrio party at UCLA’s stately Royce Hall on Friday night. They brought a boatload of instruments and sang their favorite Latin songs, just like the old days. The only thing missing was the carne asada and Coronas.

Everybody knows them professionally as Los Lobos, L.A.’s greatest Chicano rock band for the last 30 years. But Friday, the audience got to see them simply as David, Cesar, Louie and Conrad, old friends who still enjoy playing together and who turned the near-capacity auditorium into an instant neighborhood.

This marks the first time in 15 years that the band built a show around the traditional folk music they used to play in the ‘70s at weddings and baptisms before becoming famous. The nostalgia worked wonders. Normally stone-faced on stage, the Lobos -- founding members David Hidalgo, Cesar Rosas, Louie Perez and Conrad Lozano, plus fifth member Steve Berlin and drummer Cougar Estrada -- seemed to come alive, cracking jokes and even making light of technical foul-ups.

By the end, the Lobos were howling with joy and the fans were dancing to a cookin’ cumbia. “What an audience!” exclaimed guitarist Rosas.

Indeed. The fans were mostly white and over 30 or Chicano and over 40. The skewed demographics show why these wolves have been so lonely at the top. Many young Chicanos, seduced by assimilation, have abandoned the ritual that helped make this unique band so great -- regularly returning to their roots for renewal and inspiration.