Elman, Emily, Jessie, and Victor: dancing the night away.

The lights of a thousand electronic slot machines flash and glow in the cavernous entrance hall of Harrah’s Resort Southern California in Valley Center. The games have names like Buffalo Gold, Treasure Ball, and Dragon Train. Hundreds of gamblers sit before them, punching buttons over and over, watching the digital wheels of fortune spin. It’s a bit overwhelming, so at first, I miss the sign projected onto the carpet, telling me that The Event Center — where The Mavericks are opening for Dwight Yoakam tonight — is across the hall and to the right. Past Hell’s Kitchen, with its Gordon Ramsay menu; past Salt & Fin and its overflowing oyster bar, past Best of Cluck with its punny name and tasty chicken tenders ($20 for six, plus fries), and on into the capacious ballroom with the stage at one end, the elevated risers at the other, and the rows and rows of banquet chairs in between.

The chairs don’t quite fill the space, however. There are broad swaths of bare carpet in the corners on both sides of the stage, and it’s in those corners that the dancers do their thing. The Mavericks make great music for dancing, handing their bouncy-jouncy or croony-swoony lines from singer to sax to guitar to accordion to trumpet to keyboard to drums. It’s probably good for other things too, but tonight, here, it’s making people dance. Lead singer Raul Malo looks a little like Ricky Gervais and sounds a lot like Roy Orbison — except when he needs to sound like BB King or Julio Iglesais. I just wanna dance the night away/ With señoritas who can sway…

A few people dance alone — notably, a woman in a fitted cornflower-blue dress and white cowboy boots, grooving in determined fashion. But mostly, the dancers are couples. Some are young — notably, a twirling girl in a denim minidress and her beau in a baseball cap. (Later, they will have an argument. She will throw down a printout of the band’s setlist and walk off; he will leave it where it lies and walk off in a different direction. But for now, she steps away and spins back into him, over and over, an endless parade of separations and reunions.) But mostly, the dancers are somewhere past the bloom of youth, and it matters not at all.

A gentleman in a brown leather vest two-steps stiffly with a lady in jeans and a white leather jacket. A woman in a flowy floral dress and chunky heels drapes an arm around the neck of a man wearing khakis and brand new Adidas sneakers. A spry old-timer in jeans and a button down shirt sends his date — whose silver-sequin tank top matches her ankle boots — flying over the floor. A grizzled, goateed guy in a shirt that looks like it’s made from an American flag swings slowly with a girl in the band Cake’s famous combo of short skirt and long jacket. Well, a long sweater, anyway. Cowboy hats abound.

One couple moves with particular grace and ease: she with her hand turned palm-out against his shoulder blade, he with his fingers splayed and palm barely resting on her hip. His free hand trails through space, as if pointing the way to their next movement. After The Mavericks finish their set, I track them down. Victor is up from Ensenada; he’s here with Jessie. “The music is beautiful,” Victor says. “When I heard the music, my body moved. My body listened and said, ‘Move your freaking butt, man!’ I dance banda, norteño, salsa, cumbia… Sometime you have people dancing all the same at the same time, but I like to have my own style.”

Jessie says they usually go to concerts at Pala, but they’re here tonight because they love The Mavericks and because they were invited by friends Elman and Emily. “Their first date was Dwight Yoakam, 15 years ago,” Jessie says. “Here’s the catch: he sold Emily on it by saying that he loves to dance.”

“I’m a tremendous dancer,” deadpans Elman.

“He likes to dance, he likes to hike…” says Emily, recalling the line she was fed.

“I am very romantic!” insists Elman, adding that he’s such an avid hiker that “I live on Cowles Mountain and Montserrat!” By the time she learned the truth, he says, “I had won her over. I had a nice place, all that good stuff.”

“But to be forgiven, you had to dance tonight!” Emily reminds him.

“That was great in there,” says Elman. “They’re one of my favorite bands. Years ago, we flew to Texas to see them at Gruene Hall, the oldest dance hall west of the Mississippi. When the old wooden floorboards break, they fill up the space with metal license plates.”

Jessie indicates it’s time to go. “One of our other friends, she’s friends with the lead singer, so she’s talking to him to see if we can maybe have a drink or coffee with him after the concert. Mexican sweetbread and hot chocolate with Raul Malo!”