Los Tigres del Norte
The Tigers of the North played in 2018, backed by the Youth Orchestra Los Angeles—the first conjunto norteño to ever perform at the venerable venue. I was there, and it honestly wasn’t their best performance. The classical strings didn’t mesh with their polka essence, and lead singer Jorge Hernández too often looked down at a teleprompter to remember his lyrics. It didn’t matter: The packed crowd danced in their seats or took to the staircases to shimmy until security guards shooed them away—and then they did it again.
Los Fabulosos Cadillacs AND Los Auténticos Decadentes
I missed this one, and I still kick myself for it. These Argentine groups pioneered Latin American ska-influenced rock en español. Los Fabulosos’ song “Matador” was included in the underrated 1997 film Grosse Pointe Blank, while Los Auténticos are the Phish of South America, with their cultish following and ever-weird antics. That’s why every Argentine I know donned their crispest Messi jersey that night and brought some red wine, alfajores, and empanadas to exult in the eternal party of their heroes.
Fuerza Regida
The local-Latinos-to-Hollywood-Bowl pipeline continued its work in summer 2025 with this San Bernardino quartet, which started as a straightforward norteño group but earned worldwide acclaim once they began mixing in other rhythms—reggaetón, bachata, hip-hop—to accompany their sly lyrics about working-class Mexican Americans.
The Aguilar Family
In 1970, Ricardo Montalbán created the nonprofit Nosotros to advocate for better representation of Latinos in Hollywood. He gathered some friends for a fundraiser at the Bowl—oh, just Frank Sinatra, Dionne Warwick, Charlton Heston, and ranchera superstar Antonio Aguilar. Nosotros is still going strong, and so is Aguilar’s family. Fifty-five years after that first fundraiser, his son Pepe and Pepe’s children, Ángela and Leonardo, took their traveling road show to the Bowl for the biggest Latino concert there of 2025. The performers praised undocumented immigrants during a summer when Trump swung his deportation hammer at Los Angeles—and the music fought back.
Gustavo Arellano is the author of and . In 2025, Arellano was named a Pulitzer Prize finalist for his work as a columnist for the . He was formerly editor of OC Weekly, an alternative newspaper in Orange County, California, and penned the award-winning ¡Ask a Mexican!, a nationally syndicated column in which he answered any and all questions about America’s spiciest and largest minority. Arellano is the recipient of awards ranging from the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies Best Columnist to the Los Angeles Press Club President’s Award to an Impact Award from the National Hispanic Media Coalition, and he was recognized by the California Latino Legislative Caucus with a 2008 Spirit Award for his “exceptional vision, creativity, and work ethic.” Arellano is a lifelong resident of Orange County and is the proud son of two Mexican immigrants, one of whom came to this country in the trunk of a Chevy.
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