The Riverside Press-Enterprise
Entertainment best bets
There’s a ton of live entertainment coming to
Southern California casinos in April including several stand-up comedians, rock bands and regional
Mexican acts. Some of the most prominent performers will not not appear anywhere else in Southern
California during their tours. Be sure to check the official websites for the latest event information.
Teo Gonzalez and Don Cheto
Stand-up comedian Gonzalez and TV personality Cheto are teaming for a night of satire and outlandish comedy.
8 p.m. Thursday, Morongo Casino Resort & Spa, 49500 Seminole Drive, Cabazon. $59.99. 951-849-3080, morongocasinoresort.com.
Nikki Glaser
The comedian and actress is on the road supporting The Good Girl Tour.
8 p.m. April 6, Pechanga Resort Casino, 45000 Pechanga Parkway, Temecula. Tickets start at $49.50. 877-711-2946, pechanga.com.
Johnny Gill
Gill, best known for the popular Tiktok song “Rub You the Right Way” and his time with R&B pop group New Edition, is taking his solo act on the road.
8 p.m. April 6, Spotlight 29 Casino, 46-200 Harrison Place, Coachella. $40-$120. 760-7755566, spotlight29.com.
Banda MS de Sergio Lizárraga
The Mexican regional act has announced only one Southern California show for its nationwide tour.
8 p.m. April 11, Yaamava’ Resort & Casino, 777 San Manuel Blvd., Highland. $175-$599, 21 or older only. 909-864-5050, yaamava.com.
Godsmack
The rock band is on the road for its Vibez Tour, which promises a stripped-down version of its music plus Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd covers. 8 p.m. April 9, Harrah’s Resort Southern California, Harrah’s Rincon Way, Valley Center; $80.50$134.50; 760-751-3100, harrahssocal.com.
Los Ángeles Azules
The first traditional cumbia group to play at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in Indio will be hitting a couple of casino stages.
April 12, Harrah’s Resort Southern California, Harrah’s Rincon Way, Valley Center; $124.50$168; 760-751-3100, harrahssocal.com.
8 p.m. April 20, Agua Caliente Resort Casino Spa Rancho Mirage, 32250 Bob Hope Drive, Rancho Mirage; $65-$100; 800-514-3849, aguacalientecasinos.com.
Lita Ford
One of the guitarists of the Runaways, Ford is on tour performing music she’s hinted is from a new album to be released this year.
8 p.m. April 13, Agua Caliente Casino Cathedral City, 32-250 Bob Hope Drive, Rancho Mirage. $50. 800-514-3849,
aguacalientecasinos. com.
Craig Robinson
The actor and stand-up comedian is best known as Darryl from the sitcom “The Office,” but he is also a musician and performs in the funk group The Nasty Delicious.
8 p.m. April 20, Morongo Casino Resort and Spa, 49500 Seminole Drive, Cabazon. $49-$69. 951849-3080, morongocasinoresort.com.
Offspring
The Orange Countybased punk-pop band will perform a few shows leading up to its 30th-anniversary gig for hit album “Smash” at the Honda Center in Anaheim this summer.
8 p.m. April 26, Yaamava’ Resort & Casino, 777 San Manuel Blvd., Highland. Tickets start at $50, 21 or older only. 909-8645050, yaamava.com.
cvargas@scng.com
The members of rock trio ZZ Top will dress sharply when they play at Harrah’s on April 26.
ZZ Top
The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame trio known for songs such as “La Grange,” “Gimme All Your Lovin’ ” and “Cheap Sunglasses” are out on their Sharp Dressed Simple Man tour. 8 p.m. April 26, Harrah’s Resort Southern California, Harrah’s Rincon Way, Valley Center. $109.50$163. 760-751-3100, harrahssocal.com.
Gladys Knight
The Grammy Awardwinning soul singer is making her rounds for the final days of her Farewell Tour.
8 p.m. April 26, Pechanga Resort Casino, 45000 Pechanga Parkway, Temecula. Tickets start at $89. 877-711-2946, pechanga.com.
Tim Allen
The actor and stand-up comedian is back on tour and ready to profess his befuddlement at the world around him. 8 p.m. April 26, Yaamava’ Resort & Casino, 777 San Manuel Blvd., Highland; tickets start at $35, 21 or older only; 909864-5050, yaamava.com. 8 p.m. April 27, Harrah’s Resort Southern California, Harrah’s Rincon Way, Valley Center. $59.50$213. 760-751-3100, harrahssocal.com.
Banda Limon
The group is on tour with vocalists José Ramón Maldonado, Kevin Melendres and Víctor Noriega. 8 p.m. April 27, Spotlight 29 Casino, 46-200 Harrison Place, Coachella. $25-$60. 760-775-5566, spotlight29.com.
Busta Rhymes
Despite canceling his entire Blockbusta 2024 tour, the rapper is still committed to bringing his speed and lyricism to Southern California for one night.
8 p.m. April 27, Yaamava’ Resort & Casino, 777 San Manuel Blvd., Highland. $55-$799, 21 or older only. 909-864-5050, yaamava.com.
— Charlie Vargas
Stand-up comedian and actor George Lopez has been performing for decades, with his first attempt right before graduating from San Fernando High School in 1979.
For Lopez, comedy became an outlet for exploring the Mexican American experience with humor, which served as a steppingstone to his acting career and his gig as the first Mexican American to host an English-language late night show, “Lopez Tonight.”
“When you can do stand-up on a level that very few comedians have done (then go into) the sitcom, the talk show and now the show with my daughter, all things that are going good, why would you want to change anything in the mix?” Lopez said during a recent phone interview.
He’s getting back to his stand-up roots and hitting the stage at Fantasy Springs Resort Casino in Indio on April 6, where his show will focus on aging and some of the baggage that comes with it.
“I think (my show) has always been kind of reminiscent of the backyard cookout,” he said. “Now that I’m getting older and viejito (little old man), I talk about not being able to see with my mouth closed, the medicine, looking at everything that you eat, carrying an Epipen and all those things that were so foreign, but that’s the how life is lived now.”
Although Lopez’s material has often utilized his Latino identity with a comedic undertone, in his early days, his jokes didn’t have the personal touch that has become a staple of his work.
“In the early ’90s, somebody said to me, ‘If I watched you, there’s nothing really about what you’re talking about that actually tells me anything about your personal life: if you’re married; I don’t know if you have a mom and dad, what your politics are,’ and I thought that was a pretty good constructive criticism of my stand-up at that time,” he said.
To answer that criticism, Lopez began looking for comical figures within his family, which brought him to his grandmother, who had a funny and adversarial personality. She’d often joke with Lopez about being funnier than him and skipping weddings if she had already gone to the first one of the spouses. The advice helped Lopez look at his family and the funny elements in Latino culture he could make light of, such as drinking 7-Up as a medical remedy or the makeshift extension cord leashes he’d see on dogs.
“I started to look at all the stuff that was in my world, and it just became the stuff that people gravitated toward,” Lopez said.
Latino representation has been a mission of Lopez’s work throughout his career, despite a media landscape that’s struggled to tell those stories and underrepresents Latinos more broadly.
UCLA’S Entertainment & Media Research Initiative released a study last year titled “Hollywood Diversity Report 2023: Exclusivity in Progress,” which examined diversity of casting in 521 live-action, scripted television shows during the 2021-2022 season.
The study found that Latinos made up 6.1% of leads in broadcast shows, 3.6% of leads in cable shows and 4.3% of leads in digital shows despite Latinos making up 19% of the population in the U.S. While the numbers aren’t anywhere near where Lopez would like to see them, he said some progress has been made throughout the years.
“When I started my first show in 2002, Eva Longoria and America Ferrera were just starting, and there was no Eva Mendes or Gina Rodriguez, and directors like Robert Rodriguez were also just starting,” he said. “I see it getting better. Is it ever going to be a level playing field? No, but in 20 years, you do want to see it getting better than it is now, but it’s also hard for everybody. When you don’t come from a theater or comedic background, you have to scrape and find stuff, so it’s so difficult to make it that many people just stopped (trying) it.”
Lopez encountered some of those obstacles early on when trying to pitch his first television show, “George Lopez,” which eventually got picked up by ABC and ran for 120 episodes over six seasons. In a 2006 People magazine interview, he praised actress and longtime friend Sandra Bullock for helping make his show a reality when his pitches weren’t getting anywhere in Hollywood. Bullock would later join the series as an executive producer.
In “George Lopez” he stars as a fictionalized version of himself raising a family in Los Angeles, and the sitcom touches on themes of class and race. Some aspects from his real life include his best friend Ernie (same name in the show) and even some places he worked and was fired from.
“I used to work at this place called Powers Book Publishing, run by this guy named Melvin Powers who used to think he was a big shot. I even used his name (in the show), and one day, they come in with a client and he said, ‘Hey, how’s it going George?’ and I said, ‘Pretty good Melvin.’ I didn’t call him Mr. Powers,
GEORGE LOPEZ
8 p.m. April 6 Fantasy Springs Resort Casino, 84-245Indio Springs Parkway, Indio Tickets: $69-$129 at fantasyspringsresort.com
and the way he looked at me, I thought, ‘Oh man, he’s going to fire me,’ and he did that day,” Lopez said. “I found success in not trying to be an astronaut, but in trying just to keep the show grounded, and there’s really nobody that says, ‘I don’t get what they’re saying,’ and that is as big an accomplishment.”
The comedian’s latest television venture is the NBC sitcom “Lopez vs. Lopez,” about a blue-collar family and featuring his real-life daughter, Mayan Lopez. Season 2 will premiere Tuesday. He said that although there may be some slight overlaps with his previous sitcom, this one delves into more contemporary topics, such as millennial life decisions and other generational aspects that his daughter’s character explores.
“Mayan Lopez has been funny her whole life,” he said. “Every day, I look at her at some point when we’re working. I see her as a 5-year-old girl, a 7-yearold girl and a 10-year-old girl because that’s just the way my mind works. It’s hard for me sometimes to believe that the little girl who I cut her cord over in the hospital is that young lady who’s on the television show and posters with me. It’s really beyond my imagination.”
While his previous sitcom and the new one seek to represent a Latino experience, other aspects are universally appealing to audiences no matter their background, says Lopez, who attributes this to the talent of the writers.
“On the show that we have right now, we have a lot of Latina writers; they’re younger; we have people who are gay and from every facet of everyday life,” he said. “They can write on all the shows and not just the ones that have to do with an alternate life. These stories are everybody’s story. The friction between parents and their kids and getting older hasn’t changed. I’m not trying to make everybody happy, and I’m not even worried about who’s laughing. I’ve just had a long enough career where those are the things that I shouldn’t have to worry about anymore.”