Last night, the San Diego trio, Los Hollywood, hit up the Cubby Bear in Wrigleyville. As the opening act for Noches de Rock, which will take place Thursday nights, Los Hollywood was an excellent way to start the series.

The band hadn’t been back to Chicago since 2008, right after they won the MySpace Latino Battle of the Bands competition which not only built their fan base around the country, but launched them into the indie rock scene, playing at South By South West in Austin, Texas and the Latin Alternative Music Conference in New York City.

The band made up of Heidy Flores on vocals, Marcos Mondregon on guitar/bass and Gustavo Mojica on drums, recently ended their mini-Southern California tour, was only in for two days and had the opportunity to see Los Rieleros del Norte and K-Paz de la Sierra at VLive. The fact that they got a shout out from the stage, had an opportunity to hang out with Los Rieleros and got back stage access, threw Flores for a whirlwind.

“De repente dice uno de ellos, ‘Saludos a Los Hollywood!’ and I was excited!” said Flores. “He said it twice.”

The Cubby Bear performance started close to 11 p.m. with a fairly decent crowd. As soon as they took stage, people clapped, whistled and cheered.

Although many of us in the audience didn’t find out about this show until this week, it was still a good time. According to their manager, Guillermo Wightman, this show was planned a mere three weeks ago. They got the call, booked the tickets and here they were.

This was the first time for Mondregon in Chicago. He was living in Mexico for two years and wasn’t on the first trip.

“It’s awesome. It’s an awesome city and I’m happy to be here,” he said. “I was in Mexico and I was tryin to fix my papers and my immigration status. I’m happy to be back.”

Flores’ voice was as magical on stage. The music really spoke for itself. New fans could not stop talking about the sharpness and the beauty of the songs they heard for the first time.

Flores and Mondregon played a new song called Cucu, representative of the heart in love. Upbeat and cute, the song is a definite upside to the music the band is producing. Most of the songs, they said, are about love.

For the past few years, Los Hollywood have been in the process of writing and figuring out just where they want their new album to go. Within the time they’ve been away from Chicago, they released a second EP, which I didn’t hear about until last night. But all of those elements will be going into the new album produced by Thom Russo, which they hope will be out by summer of 2012.

“We’re very excited because we’re going to work with a great producer who’s worked with Johnny Cash, Michael Jackson,” said Flores. ” [In] Latin America I would say Juanes, Mana. He just recently went to the Latin Grammys this year as a sound egineer. He now has 16 Grammys.”

The music on the new album is going to be an improvement and a change for sure, they all agreed.

“I think we’ve grown in these past three years since we came. I think the songs are going to be way better, the production, everything is going to sound a lot better,” said Flores.

The three have been working tediously on the lyrics to the songs, locking themselves away until they emerge with a hit, they said. But they never try to force or finish a song just to finish it. The lyrics have to come to them, they said.

“We’re not machines, you know? We’re not always producing songs. Pero queremos sacar canciones que le guste a la gente,” Mojica said. One song in particular took them a month to finish writing.  ”La cancion no queria ser terminada,” laughed Mojica.

“Some songs are like the first EP but everything is different. Things are different. Ahora los tres somos mas involucrados in the song writing,” Flores added.

Though the album isn’t done, it’s almost there. Once they land in San Diego, they’ll be going back to write more songs and finish the album.

The band played about four of their new songs, which seemed to hit home with the audience. Of course they played “No Te Aguites,” their fist single that everyone adores, “Te Quiero Tanto” and “Gira, Gira” off of their fist EP. People in the audience were definitely singing along.

Though their music is growing and changing, Mojica claimed that there will always be that “Los Hollywood” sound to their music.

“Even si tocamos cumbia, Los Hollywood will be there.  Creo que es la forma que tocamos juntos los tres. Cuando nos juntamos a tocar, sale el sonido de Los Hollywood,” he said.

It definitely showed last night. They ended their 10-song set list and decided to play just one more, with which the audience wasn’t satisfied. They left the stage only to be invited back on by screaming, whistling and chants of “Otra! Otra!”

What people don’t usually know is that Flores sang rancheras and mariachi music before finding her love for rock and pop. Mojica told me years ago that that’s how he came to find out who she was. She was the girl that sang Mariachi and played guitar in San Diego. The first song they ever played together was Alanis Morisette’s “You Oughta Know.”

As she came back on stage, they decided to play a ranchera that had people clapping and whistling up a storm. The girl still has it.

Over all, it was an excellent performance on a mild night in the city. The band said they had a blast and look forward to being back again. Meanwhile, they have big plans coming up like visiting Colombia, Spain and of course, Mexico.