December 21, 2024
Eli and Edythe Broad Stage, Santa Monica
I cannot say enough good things about this fantastic trio. We saw them last year at LMU as part of the anniversary celebration of Serenata De Trios and were blown away. I knew I had to get tickets when I saw they were playing a Christmas show. I already had my tickets when I learned it was a farewell show. So sad for those of you who didn’t get a chance to see them – look them up on YouTube. They played a nice mix of boleros and Christmas songs (the Christmas songs were sung in Spanish and English) and had the entire audience with them from the first note to the last. All 3 are fantastic musicians with accomplished guitar work, tight harmonies and that voice! Rocio Mendoza can SING! At one point Julie turned to me and said, “She could cover Patsy” and that is saying something. They announced that after the show they would be at the merch table signing CDs and had T-shirts for sale. We each bought a CD and as soon as I can figure out how to transfer it into the computer (where could that disc drive be?), I will. Side note: there was a woman next to me while we were waiting for the musicians to come out to sign the merch who asked if I’d seen Tres Souls before (she had not) and then asked if I speak Spanish (I do not – and neither does she). We agreed that speaking Spanish is not necessary to enjoy this fantastic group. Although I see enough Spanish language shows that it might be time for me to learn Spanish.
This was our first time to this venue. The Broad Stage is at Santa Monica and 11th in Santa Monica. It’s a nice venue, pretty small, but with enough height to provide a good acoustic experience. The traffic gods were with us. Julie beat me there from Pasadena, which is amazing. And it only took me about 20 minutes to get there. Parking is free and plentiful. The lot is sort of weird with planters that don’t need to be there so I ended up having to walk away from the entrance and a few rows forward before walking toward the entrance. A small inconvenience though. Once we’d picked up our tickets from Will Call (Today Tix strikes again), we scanned in and were greeted by the delicious smell of tacos cooking. There was a bar and a few vendors set up including a cookie vendor who gladly took our money. The person scanning tickets mentioned there was free hot cocoa, so we headed there first and got in line. We had just enough time to finish our cocoa before going in and finding our seats (no food allowed – we saved the cookie for after). We did wait after the show for autographs, but we were first in line, so it wasn’t that long and by the time we’d gotten to the car the lot had pretty well emptied out, so I can say with confidence that parking is easy in and easy out. We decided we would be visiting this venue again some time in the future. There were a few interesting shows advertised so time to look for tickets. Maybe Today Tix will come through for me again.