Grupo Estrella: One day, they may wake you from a peaceful slumber. 

JACONA, Michoacan — Normally at 12:30 a.m. this sleepy residential street on a hill overlooking Zamora, is, well, asleep. But one recent early morning, about a dozen conspirators gathered to carry on a tradition that, while started by Europeans, has been honed to a fine art by Mexicans.

The plot is simple: For between $50 and $100, you hire a band and then wake somebody up - usually a girlfriend or wife - in the middle of the night with a surprise private concert. The goal is to celebrate, to score points, and occasionally, to make up for something horrible you’ve done. But serenading isn’t easy, because like a thief, you must close in on your target without causing too much ruckus.

For the Zamora-based all-female guitar group Estrella, just finding the location of one recent gig proved difficult. One of the band’s members, Lidia Cabrera, told me that she had never been to this part of Jacona, despite spending essentially all of her 27 years in that town. The result: We spent about 20 minutes, with five people crammed into Cabrera’s blue compact, totally lost in a semi-rural area with no street lights and without what are normally the two best options for getting unlost. Calling for directions would ruin the surprise, and there was nobody to ask on the street, since everyone was, at least for the moment, asleep.

After several rounds of patient cell-phone triangulation with the other car, we finally found the place, only to then face the challenge of trying to unload a bunch of people and musical instruments from a car without making a sound, all the while coordinating with the assembled family members and significant other to establish just which house was the target.

But these people are professionals, and soon a silence born of anticipation fell over the scene as the band, clad in their white uniforms, formed a semi-circle on the front lawn of number 68. Someone opened a window to enhance the effectiveness of the wake-up in the completely dark house.

Then the guitar music pierced through the night. Las Mañanitas, the traditional birthday and saint day song, never sounded so good. Soon, the neighbors started to perk up, coming to their doorways to see who was the recipient of this extra special present. But the house remained dark.

The band had almost finished the song when the lights finally came on, and soon there appeared a young woman, bleary-eyed and barefoot, dressed in shorts and a tee shirt. Soon, the sleepy look turned to realization, then surprise, then emotion, as her boyfriend and other family members came up one by one for a birthday hug.

The concert soon had to be moved indoors on account of rain, perhaps a convenient segue for the tears that came slowly from the eyes of the serenaded. In the house, the laundry draped all over the small white and yellow couches betrayed the success of the surprise.

The festivities then entered a sit-back-and-listen phase. The birthday girl continued to look moved. Members of the family, unable to squeeze into the living room, hung out outside and made funny faces at each other. The repertoire was pure love, both the sad longing kind and the joyous tidings forever kind. Now and again, someone gave a look that seemed to ask “why is there an estadounidense taking notes on my couch?”

After the half hour of singing concluded, the event turned into a brief social occasion. The family passed out glasses of Cherry Coke, and everyone started reminiscing about one thing or another. Then the group moved outside again, to the quiet street with a view of the Zamora skyline. Pictures were taken, jokes were made, and rides back to town were coordinated. By 1 a.m., as the band members cars pulled away, the lights in the house went out.