BLOOMINGTON - In their highest-profile local showing to date, Backyard Tire Fire will be burning up the Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts stage Saturday night before the wolves start howling. "The wolves" meaning Los Lobos, of course.

While the B-N trio has played major venues around the country in recent years, the concert marks Backyard Tire Fire's first hometown performance away from the local club circuit.

Band publicist Kevin Calabro confirmed that the Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts opener is BTF's biggest local gig thus far.

He said the group will get around 45 minutes to state its musical case.

Calabro noted that the performance comes in the thick of the band's current national touring supporting the band's new album, "The Places We Lived," recorded at Bloomington's Oxide Lounge Recording and released in August.

The album is the encore to 2007's widely praised "Vagabonds and Hooligans," nailed by the Chicago Sun-Times as "an effort worthy of early Wilco."

A new music video for the latest single release, "How in the Hell Did You Get Back Here?," was filmed around Bloomington recently.

Saturday's show will be the lone local performance for the remainder of '08, Calabro noted (the band's previous B-N gig, a Paulie's date back in August, was one of the last for the now-shuttered downtown Bloomington club).

With a lineup of all-original songs by band founder Ed Anderson, the album has garnered critical praise for the trio, rounded out by Ed's younger brother, Matt, on bass and Tim Kramp on drums.

"Los Lobos is one of Ed's favorite bands," said Calabro, a fact that makes Saturday night's BCPA concert even more special for a group that has opened for a number of headliner acts around the country in recent years, including Squirrel Nut Zippers, Rusted Root, Rev. Horton Heat, Clutch and others.

But, Calabro agrees, opening for Los Lobos looms large on the list, right up alongside another legendary band BFT preceded on stage, Lynyrd Skynyrd.

"This one is high in the top percentage," he said.

On the Web:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hA-g6yqUh4