Alex Lora is 71 years old, and he still plays the bass like he has something to prove. El Tri — the band he has led since 1968 — brings their ADICTO AL ROCANROL TOUR to Emo’s Austin on Friday, November 13.
This is Mexican rock. Not Latin pop, not regional, not Norteño — rocanrol, the movement Lora helped build when he made the pivotal decision to stop writing in English and start writing in Spanish, so audiences could actually understand what he was saying. That call helped establish what the world now calls rock en español. Most people citing the genre today don’t trace it back this far. They should.
About El Tri
The band formed in Mexico City in 1968 as Three Souls in My Mind. They came of age at the 1971 Festival de Avándaro — Mexico’s Woodstock — performing as both the opening and closing act before an estimated crowd of hundreds of thousands. The Mexican government cracked down on rock music afterward, shutting radio stations, closing venues. El Tri responded by going underground, to makeshift spaces called hoyos funky in abandoned buildings across the city. Repression didn’t kill the music. It sharpened it.
Officially renamed El Tri in 1985 — the name references Mexico’s tricolor flag and the national soccer team’s nickname — the band has since released 53 albums, most recently Qué Chingon in 2022. Lora is Grammy-winning, has shared stages with the Rolling Stones, Chuck Berry, and Johnny Winter, and has statues in his honor in Guadalajara, Los Angeles, and Puebla. Most of the band’s members are now in their 70s, which makes this Texas run — San Antonio on November 7, Austin the 13th, Irving the 14th, Houston the 15th — something fans shouldn’t take for granted.
Their catalog runs from the ballad “Triste Canción” to the rock anthem “Las Piedras Rodantes” to “Pobre Soñador.” Lora’s rallying cry has never changed: “¡Que viva el rocanrol!” — long live rock and roll.
About Emo’s Austin
Emo’s Austin sits at 2015 E Riverside Dr., a 1,700-capacity club across the Colorado River from downtown. An Austin punk institution since 1992 — originally on Red River Street, moved to its current Riverside location in 2011 — it now books across genres and serves as an official South by Southwest venue. It’s the right room for a band that earns every inch of the crowd it draws.
Tickets
El Tri plays Emo’s Austin on Friday, November 13, 2026, at 7:00 PM. Tickets are available now via Live Nation. Get yours before the Texas run sells through.