Flash forward to a few minutes just after Los Lobos performed a 100-minute dazzler on a sold-out, Saturday night at the Narrows. Backstage, guitarist and singer David Hidalgo recalls the moments, earlier in the evening, when the band was drawing up the setlist. “We said, let’s make it a rock show.” Rock show it was.

From an opening “Flat Top Joint” that rumbled in, riding on a trio of guitars, courtesy of Hidalgo, Cesar Rosas, and Louie Perez, to the extended atmospherics of a slower, but equally as affecting “Tin Can Trust,” colored by Steve Berlin’s charcoal sax and bassist Conrad Lozano’s insistent groove, the wolves were charging hard. Even the latter’s tempo was pushed up a bit, matching the energy the sextet established and maintained throughout.

There were nods to the earliest days of this iconic band from East L.A., dipping back with “One Time One Night,” and, later, further back with an-always rousing “Volver, volver,” featuring Hidalgo on squeezebox and Perez on drums, that had the capacity crowd swaying in song at the old Massachusetts mill. For every jumping entry- whether a nod to Ritchie Valens on “Let’s Go,” or the fortified flex of “Don’t Worry Baby,” or the medley of classics that honored “Papa was a Rolling Stone,” “I Can’t Understand,” and “Oye Como Va,”- there were, as well, shadowing, seductive turns. It’s one of the many charms of this ageless group, able to drive the Fall River faithful breathless on the dancefloor or meditative in-between.

The ensemble’s shifts to “Chuco’s Cumbia,” or “The Valley,” or “Kiko and the Lavender Moon” revealed these veterans at their reflective and probing best. They can rock-and-roll, and they can be beautiful. The final stretch was all thunder, though, kicked-off with “Angel Dance,” and closing out with a cap-tip to the Grateful Dead, with “Bertha,” and a flourishing encore of “La Bamba.”

Even as Los Lobos has rolled past the 50-year mark, as one of America’s finer bands, it has continued to hone and refine and celebrate its strengths. With songs that endure, a reverence for roots, influences, and culture, and, certainly, on a night like tonight, the muscle to rock the house, Los Lobos remains a collective artist in rarified air. The next day, the band will travel to the coast of Massachusetts, for a screening of a work-in-progress documentary on the venerable group. Then, it’s back to California for a run of dates, then a fall tour, and already bookings into May of 2027.

As for the seemingly endless future of the wolves, says Rosas, backstage post-show, “As long as these guys want to keep going.”