Los Lobos steps up for Garfield High

The band will headline a benefit concert at the Gibson Amphitheatre on Oct. 14 to raise money for rebuilding the Garfield High School auditorium that burned down this year. A bunch of East L.A. music legends will join in — including Little Willie G of Thee Midniters — but Cesar Rosas says for Los Lobos "we're on a mission from God to try to help." The auditorium, a center of life in East L.A., apparently was torched by a freshman angry at the principal. Agustin Gurza's story in Saturday's LAT:

The arson fire that destroyed the historic auditorium at Garfield High School earlier this year all but obliterated the framed portraits of illustrious alumni that had hung on a now-charred wall of fame. It was as if the blaze had tried to snuff out their identity and achievements, leaving only blackened and blistered images like specters of the success that means so much to this East L.A. campus and its blue-collar community.

Somehow, one of the images survived almost unscathed. It was a portrait of Cesar Rosas of Los Lobos, the famed East L.A. band, wearing his characteristic dark glasses and impassive expression, like a silent witness to the destruction. He's not calling it a miracle, but the musician took the sparing of his portrait as an omen for the band.

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"This little mixed-up kid, God forgive him," said Rosas. "He's just too immature to realize the damage he's caused."

That's a nice Al Seib photo with the story, shot Friday inside the shored-up wreckage.