Staples braces for magnitude 4

This week, one act is poised to make history in Los Angeles with a series of concerts over four consecutive nights at Staples Center, the biggest musical event by a Latin artist at the arena.

So who is this monster box-office attraction?

Shakira? Daddy Yankee? Santana with a raft of star collaborators?

No, it's a scruffy Mexican rock band largely unknown to non-Latinos in the U.S. that performs exclusively in Spanish and shuns the crossover path normally taken by Latino artists seeking wider audiences here.

The band is Maná (pronounced with the accent on the second syllable), a quartet from Guadalajara that has sold more than 22 million records in its 20-year career and has steadily -- almost stealthily -- emerged as one of the biggest pop music acts on the planet. The group starts a four-night engagement at the 19,000-capacity arena Thursday that industry experts are calling record-setting.

"It certainly sounds like landmark status to me," said Gary Bongiovanni, editor of Pollstar, the concert-industry tracking journal. "Most acts do one night [at Staples]. An exceptional act does two. For a band to do four is quite an achievement. That's really unprecedented."

Maná has accomplished the feat, which ties the Staples record Neil Diamond set in 2005 with four consecutive performances, with a straightforward style that recalls its days as a garage band doing Led Zeppelin and Rolling Stone covers, traveling from gig to gig in a VW van that sometimes doubled as lodging. The four musicians still dress the part of bad-boy rockers -- long scraggly locks, strategically placed tattoos, denim or leather pants -- but they rarely deviate from the inoffensive musical formula that has brought them so much success around the world, a Latin-rock blend of electric guitars, uncomplicated salsa rhythms, romantic lyrics with melodramatic overtones and a soft-sell approach to social causes (the ecology, immigration, the welfare of children) that doesn't alienate nonbelievers.

"We've remained very faithful to our own artistic instincts," said lead singer and songwriter Fher Olvera, who forms the nucleus of the band with Cuban-Colombian drummer Alex González. "We've seen a lot of musical styles come and go, but we don't get on the trend train. In the end, people really appreciate that, because they see that we're honest about what we're doing and we give it our best."