You can tell the story of Los Tigres del Norte with numbers.
Over a career that spans five decades, the norteño act has sold 37 million albums and recorded 500 songs. They have seven Grammy Awards, eight Latin Grammys and they’ve had 66 songs land on Billboard’s “Hot Latin Songs” chart, the most of any Latin music act ever.
In 2002, more than 67,000 people turned out to watch them play at the Houston Astrodome —12,000 more than showed up to watch the Beatles at Shea Stadium in 1965.
But you can also tell the story of Los Tigres through places.
There is Rosa Morada, the small ranching town in the northwestern Mexican state of Sinaloa where they grew up. Mexicali, the border city where they cut their teeth supplying soundtracks to local bordellos. Soledad, Calif., where they played their first concert in the United States — for the Mexican inmates at the state prison there.
Since then, Los Tigres have played just about every top venue in Mexico and the U.S., including the Los Angeles’ Staples Center and Walt Disney Concert Hall, Mexico City’s 87,000-seat Azteca stadium and the country’s Auditorio Nacional (National Auditorium) — the equivalent of the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C, a venue they have also played.