OYE, MANÁ: Kings of rock en Español play to sold-out Hidalgo crowd

HIDALGO — Hundreds of orange lights flickered through Dodge Arena as Maná took the stage Tuesday night. Seconds later the white sheets surrounding the stage fell, and lead singer Fher Olvera started to sing.

Drummer Alex Gonzalez jumped into the air, spun around and slammed his drumsticks down on the kit, setting the scene for an energy-filled concert.

And energy-filled was exactly what Vanessa Treviño of Matamoros had hoped for from the concert.

A longtime fan of the Mexican band, Treviño has attended many of Maná’s shows. All of the concerts were good, she said. But she hoped this one would be “magnificent.”

Sara Guerra of Mission grew up listening to Maná.

“Their music is awesome,” she said.

Although she knew she would hear some new songs, she hoped the band would also play some of the songs from her childhood.

Maná didn’t disappoint the full house. They played a mix of old and new — and the crowd ate it up. This was the concert for which many of them had been waiting nearly a decade.

“Está padrísimo,” McAllen’s Rosy Corro enthused halfway through the concert. “It’s the best.”

Corro, a fan of Maná for almost a decade, grinned from ear to ear as she talked about hearing her favorite song — “Labios Compartidos” — played live.

“It was amazing,” she said.

And she wasn’t the only one who seemed to enjoy the concert. A powerful positive energy moved through the crowd at the beginning of the show and remained throughout. Fans sung along with the band. Husbands and wives, girlfriends and boyfriends, children and parents — all wrapped their arms around each other, singing, swaying and smiling.

At the halfway point, Gonzalez got the crowd on its feet with a 10-minute drum solo. Smiling, laughing and seeming like he enjoyed every second, Gonzalez played and played.

He stopped only once to drink a glass of beer, lowered down in a bucket from the ceiling. He seemed to be a never-ending fountain of energy. When the solo ended he threw his drumsticks into the outstretched arms of screaming fans.

Formed in Guadalajara, Mexico, and the brainchild of Olvera, Maná has surpassed all other Latin outfits in the last 20-plus years. In the United States alone, its most recent release, Amar Es Combatir, has sold more than 500,000 units and became the first Spanish-language album to achieve the highest rank on the Billboard Top 200, according to Maná’s official Web site.

The band’s years of experience paid dividends Tuesday night, with fans at Dodge Arena scarcely able to get enough of them.

“This is one of the best concerts I’ve ever been to,” said Guillermo Perez, who claims to have attended every big concert in recent history at the popular Hidalgo venue.

“They’re really good,” he said.

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Monitor staff writer Miriam Ramirez contributed to this story.

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Paige Lauren Deiner covers features and entertainment for The Monitor. She can be reached at (956) 683-4425.