Their name may translate from Spanish to Third Heaven, but married pop duo Tercer Cielo’s Sunday night concert at the Riverside Theater was a rather earthbound affair.
As Tercer Cielo, Dominican Juan Carlos Rodríguez and his Mexican-American wife, Evelyn Herrera, have cultivated a unique niche crossing over from the growing Hispanic contemporary Christian music scene to general-market Spanish language radio play by performing songs proclaiming both their love of their Lord and each other. That approach, woven into which are the various musical influences from pan-Hispanic popular music, works to the couple’s favor enough to have let them become a regular presence on Billboard’s Latin radio play and album sales charts without apparent spiritual compromise.
The couple may be one of the Riverside’s more unusual bookings in quite a while, yet the twosome and their three-piece band were able fill about two-thirds of the venue in the middle of a holiday weekend. Unfortunately, a late start and odd pacing between songs and stretches of exhortation by Rodríguez made for an evening at least a bit less satisfying than listening to a YouTube playlist of their many hits.
After several minutes of video screens that only showed the group’s name, out came Rodríguez and Herrera just as the crowd was beginning to chant for something of substance happen.
That substance was comprised of a 14-song set, or 15 if one counts the revisiting of the anthemic “Creeré” for which a couple from Chicago, vying with Rodríguez and Herrera to top the cuteness scale, were invited up from their seats to record the onstage proceedings with their smartphones. The down-tempo side of their catalog was emphasized throughout the night. No matter the pace of the material, however, there were moments when it was obvious the backing musicians received a bit of pre-recorded assistance. The bits of accordion and brass, and the rapid percussion native to the Dominican Republic’s indigenous pop music, bachata, on one number were surely not coming from the electric guitarist, drummer and bassist behind them.
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When the live instrumentalists were given individual shots in the limelight, they didn’t disappoint. The bassist soloed with a dexterity recalling Victor Wooten while throwing a few “hallelujahs” into his scat singing. A drummer who could take a long chug of his bottled water while playing excited the crowd to applause, too. The guitarist varied his tone throughout the show, but broached especially fetching terrain when utilizing the chiming style of Nigerian high life music for that number with the canned bachata beat. The trio’s combined effort came together (or, perhaps, fell apart?) in a shambolic funk workout of which Rodríguez and Herrera probably did well to steer clear.
Tercer Cielo are musically accomplished ambassadors of loves earthly and divine. Though Milwaukee is likely one of the smaller markets they’re playing on their current tour, it’s a shame that things didn’t go better for them at the Riverside. Here’s hoping they will return with the kinks worked out and time for a few more songs.
