Ana Tijoux
I think we watched the wrong preview video for this first part of the concert, as it turned out that Ana Tijoux is a Chilean rapper. Although there were a couple of ballads mixed in, I did not enjoy the rap songs. I also didn’t understand them as they were in Spanish. It also seemed to me that the piano timing was off for many songs. It seemed like they needed a few bars to get in sync each time.
Flora de Toloache
I’m glad we stayed for the second half: an all-female mariachi band from New York. The four performers shown are Eunice Aparicio, Shae Fiol, Julie Acosta and Mireya Ramos. There were two additional performers, one on violin and the other on trumpet. They played a lot of original and great tunes. They are a good tight band. I did have an issue with the overly long and out of place violin solo. Why didn’t they do the short call and response like the violin and trumpet solo? It kind of spoiled the concert finale.
Although the band was ready for more, there wasn’t an encore as I think the audience was exhausted after three hours!