We had been enjoying such great performances at each E! Terrell performance, but my wife and I had been travelling and working around the house and doing volunteer work so much, that “tiredness” made at least me a little reluctant to leave the house for a day/ evening or two. I was about ready to stay home!
However, we arrived at the Performing Arts Center, saw more cars than we had expected, talked to several friendly folks on the way into the hall, and began to be a little more excited to be out and about, as we settled into our usual favorite seats!
After Judge Chitty’s enthusiastic announcements and introductions, including the opportunity of purchas-ing either or both of two collectible, playable, finely crafted, and autographed by the performers guitars, we saw a stage full of guitars and three men, well actually two men and one young boy, preparing to get to work. The guitars were auctioned to the highest bidders, and proceeds benefitted E! Terrell and Terrell I. S. D. Performing Arts.
After they tuned up a little while and briefly introduced their group, they began playing. WOW! I was already “blown away” after only one song.
They opened with two or three ‘Spanish” songs as many of us might say, and they were better than any I had heard on television or in person in “Mexican Food” restaurants and movie theatres.
As they continued, we listened raptly to a BEATLES medley, including “Can’t Buy Me Love,” “Yesterday’s Gone,” “Hard Day’s Night,” “Hey, Jude,” “Yesterday,” and “Saw Her Standing There.” I was no longer tired, as I tapped my feet and added in my mind the words that were being strummed and picked on the guitars.
The Brave Amigos sang some of the songs as they played their various guitars and also did many, many instrumentals that made words flow through my head and made my fingers tap out the words on my legs and chair back! The 13 years old performer played the back and front of his guitar, from time to time, as if it were a drum, and I would have liked to have been his helper!
“Devil Went Down To Georgia” (Charlie Daniels Band), “Classical Gas” (Mason Williams), “William Tell Overture” (Lone Ranger), “The Edge in the Middle of Nowhere” (original), “Greensleeves” (“What Child Is This”), “Boogie-Woogie” (1870s, 1920s), “Whole Lotta Shakin” (Jerry Lee Lewis), “Purple Haze” (Jimi Hendrix), “Dueling Banjos,” “Theme from Rawhide,” “Another One Bites The Dust” and “Bohemian Rhapsody” (Queen), Pink Floyd—from The Wall, “Sultans of Swing” (Dire Straits), from “Teen-Age Wasteland” (The Who), ”Walk—Don’t Run” (The Ventures)…..and so much more (including much original material) with titles that my wife and I cannot exactly remember, but they were all amazing!
The ”BRAVE AMIGOS” (named that because they were and are willing to try any song or style of music) are leader and nationallyknown and lauded, Edgar Cruz (classical and fingerstyle guitarist), Marco Tello (lead singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist), and Blake Bricker (13 years old and trained under Cruz and also the Romero Classical Guitar Institute at Oklahoma City Institute—first love is “classical rock”). Cruz, from Oklahoma, remarked that he had started his singing in an El Charrito Restaurant, which later became the famous chain, El Chico.
Humorous closing note: Cruz announced, after much music with the crowd clamoring for more, that “we are about to play our encore selection(s). You know, one time a while back we left the stage and were preparing to return for an ‘encore,’ and when we walked out there, THE CROWD WAS GONE! So, since then we never leave the stage before announcing our intent to do the ‘encore’ right then. So, here it is.” They played maybe even more enthusiastically (if that were possible) and left to a STANDING OVATION, and Don Themer not really ready to leave!
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