SOUTH PADRES ISLAND, Texas – With so much hysteria today about migrants coming from Mexico, the Caribbean, Central and South American and even overseas, people and politicians from South Texas to the nation’s capital should hear and pay attention to the music Los Tigres del Norte have been playing for decades.
The legendary band from San Jose, Calif., brought its music on Saturday, March 30, to South Padre Island, Texas, as part of their worldwide “Siempre Contigo” 2024 Tour, playing a repertoire of its controversial songs filled with political, economic, and social messages.
The band, which originated in Culiacan State, has been playing since 1965 and has received more Grammy and Latin awards than any group of the Norteno or regional band genre.
Nearly 60 years later, Los Tigres del Norte’s music is practically a mirror of what is going on today along the 2,000-mile plus U.S southern border from Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California states.
The “Tres Veces Mojado” song, for instance, is about people from Central America, particularly El Salvador, who have to cross three borders – Guatemala, Mexico and U.S. – in search of a better life.
But their odyssey ends after they get caught and sent back to their places of origin to start all over again.
Several of the Tigers of the North songs contain messages of living in poverty, family separations, melancholy of living away from home, and the hardships migrants go through and endure today.
Other songs are what are known narco-corridos, or songs that depict the life of drug smugglers from Mexico and Colombia and those associated with them.
Regardless of the themes, Los Tigres Del Norte have also been playing those and many other songs about the lives of common people, about love affairs and about their heritage and personal identities.
At the concert on South Padre Island, they played “La Banda del Carro Rojo,” “Pedro y Pablo”, “La Carta,” “La Puerta Negra,” “La Reina del Sur,” “Hermoso Carino,” “El Hijo del Pueblo” and many others.
In addition to the concert, the Ballet Folkloric from the University of Texas-Brownsville and Mariachi Rey Del Valle kept the audience on their feet.
Los Tigres Del Norte are taking their “Siempre Contigo” tour to Europe where they have scheduled several concerts in a number of countries, including Spain and the United Kingdom.
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