I wasn’t sure what to expect for my 10th Café Tacuba concert. Via Twitter, I’d learned that their show in San Francisco didn’t go too well. The sound was bad and the band seemed low on energy.

But I was hoping for the best. I needed Café Tacuba to put on a great show and let me get my mind off of shtuff. I was accompanied by Chispa. I still don’t understand how she had never seen them live up until Thursday night.

We arrived at the Gibson Amphitheater at Universal Studios full of rockeros. It seemed like everyone was wearing black and Converse Chuck Taylors. Chispa and I counted a half dozen pairs of Chucks in our row alone and estimated how many there were in the crowd as a whole (I guessed 10% she guessed higher).

The show started promptly at 9 pm with the two initial tracks of the recently-released album, Sino. The crowd responded well to the new stuff, but was much more excited about the songs from their albums released in the ’90s.

Los Tacubos continued for two hours playing songs from all of their albums minus Reves/Yosoy. I’d complained that they were a bit predictable when I saw them at the Hollywood Bowl in July. That wasn’t the case this time since they were including new songs as well as old songs they rarely play in concert like “Alármala de Tos” and “El Fin de la Infancia.” I have to admit, I can’t really dance along to “Alármala de Tos,” it’s too depressing.

Highlights, lowlights and the setlist after the jump.

Highlight: hearing “El Fin de la Infancia” live.

Lowlight: the annoying woman behind us who kept screaming really loud at the band as if they could hear her. Ugh. I wanted to hit her.

Lowlight (runner up): the venue. I generally don’t like the Gibson, but I didn’t want to go San Diego. I had good seats, so it didn’t feel that big. Plus, the band did things to make the venue seem smaller. Rubén ran out into the crowd at one point and later invited girls up to the stage during “La Chica Banda.”

The setlist:
Seguir Siendo
Tengo Todo
Eo
Cero y Uno
Las Flores
El Ciclón
53100
Trópico de Cáncer
La Negrita (end of the song)
Mediodía
El Outsider
Volver a Comenzar
Alármala de Tos
Chilanga Banda
El Fin de la Infancia
La Chica Banda
Déjate Caer

Encore (if you can call it that):
Eres
El Baile y el Salón
De Acuerdo
María
Las Batallas
Rarotonga
Gracias
No Controles
Como Te Extraño Mi Amor
Pinche Juan (instrumental)