Riffs, Roams and Raves uncovers the creative, noteworthy and accomplished in the Wimberley Valley and beyond with tips on who to hear, where to go and what to see from managing editor Teresa Kendrick.
Riffs: Jessee Lee Underground
Would you like to do something memorable to mark February 29, the occasion of 2024’s leap year? One of my favorite singers, Jessee Lee, is performing in the underground ballroom at Natural Bridge Caverns. The daughter of Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter David Lee, Jessee has one of the most unusual voices out there. She’s a little Dolly, a little Billie, a little Janis with a good dollop of Amy Winehouse thrown in. While she’s undeniably country, she has a unique sound all of her own. You might have heard her song, “Dive Bar Superstar.”
Open March through November, Natural Bridge Caverns is the largest commercial cave in the U.S. Each year they begin their underground concert series called Live Underground in their 5700 square foot ballroom, a large room in the cave that can seat up to 250 people for dinners and concerts. Jessee is their first headliner this season. Other interesting acts include Stephanie Urbina Jones & The Honky tonk Mariachi. Tickets to Jessee’s concert are $65 and available online. Natural Bridge Cavern is about 40 miles from Wimberley on good, if winding, country roads. Plan accordingly. Go early and make a day of it by touring the cave.
Roams: Cedar Park for Cirque du Soleil My roam this week took me to the H-E-B Center at Cedar Park, which hosted one of Cirque du Soleil’s shows, “Crystal.” Most certainly the best and most complete live entertainment on the planet, the Cirque du Soleil is a world leader. It began in 1984 on the streets of Montreal by stilt walkers and former street performers Guy Laliberté and Gilles Ste-Croix. Its creators flipped the idea of a circus on its head by keeping all of its theatrical, acrobatic and aerial elements but eliminating the inclusion of animals altogether.
Like all Cirque du Soleil’s shows, “Crystal” is an immersive multimedia production with circus-style acrobatics and aerials, comedy, live music, modern dance, a high tech sound and light show, as well as sophisticated theatre with cinematic overhead and backstage projections, enlightened staging, props and costuming — all performed on ice.
The story is of a young girl filled with angst about her future who goes skating and falls through the ice. Projected on the set’s 40 foot tall constructed backdrop and stage we see her face underwater as she peers through the ice. During the 100-minute show that follows, we watch as her young life passes in front of her and witness the unfolding of her future as she musters the desire to live.
While under water, she sees her family and school, her awkwardness at not fitting in, her desire to create, the intimidating demands of the world, her fear of not finding love and of not claiming her place in the world.
Each act is fully realized. Projected on the ice from above, we see a new set for each scene. At home and school we see tiled floors, in the park we see lanes and lawns, in the love scene we see beautiful mandalas. Props glide across the ice and trapezes, silks and ropes are lowered from above. Live musicians, soloists or duos play on the back stage or at the edge of the rink. A massive sound system delivers an audio soundtrack. Choreographed skaters tell the story in movement, dance and acrobatics. Comic figures make us laugh. Aerialists dazzle. Families filling the 8,000 seat arena were glued to the performance. They gasped and laughed and held their breath as performers did the impossible. One acrobat stacked seven chairs, one by one, in a dizzying tower and stood on his hands on top. I was too fascinated to close my eyes, although my knees turned to water at the sight of him.
There are 20-some Cirque du Soleil shows worldwide, including six in Las Vegas, where I saw my first, and about a dozen others that tour. Wikipedia says its 1300 artists are from 50 different countries and some are Olympians. You can believe it, because what you’ll see are superhuman performances. Tickets begin at $55 and go up considerably, but this is entertainment that will stay with you forever. In fact it surpasses what is normally labeled as entertainment. It belongs squarely, in my mind at least, in the realm of the miraculous.
Rave: Blue Corn Harvest There’s no trip to Cedar Park without a meal at Blue Corn Harvest Bar and Grill on Whitestone Blvd. Just seven minutes or so from the H-E-B Center at Cedar Park, it was a foregone conclusion that it would be part two of my Cedar Park roam. I made an online reservation, not knowing if there would be a long line.
It’s a scrubbed restaurant with good silverware, attentive staff, an indoor dining room, a full bar and outdoor patio. In the kitchen is Executive Chef Santos Garcia. His bio will tell you he began his employment in 1994 at a very popular southwestern restaurant on Sixth street in south Austin where he worked his way up to become the Executive Chef.
While I never met the man, I knew all about his merits with one look at the restaurant’s flash fried oyster shooters. The fresh, lightly breaded oysters were served with mango relish and habanero aioli on triangles of blue corn chips.
Before the first bite, I saw the precision that went into the preparation — tiny dices of peppers and mangoes, thin slivers of red cabbage, drizzled aioli in perfect proportion. It was no fussy, over-groomed plate of microscopic proportions. The oysters were big, tender and plentiful. On the restaurant’s starter menu, it was delicious, satisfying and generous enough for a light eater. For my second course I ordered the Baja Shrimp tacos of sautéed shrimp cooked in a pineapple Baja sauce with onions and sweet peppers. It came served in a one-person skillet with a rolled foil package of corn tortillas, as well as a mound of rice and black beans. The pineapple Baja sauce was glorious. I would have been happy to spoon it up in a soup bowl with the shrimp as an afterthought, it was so good. Again, the attention to detail was there. Sprinkles of cotija and tiny dices of jalapeño topped the shrimp, and everything had the unmistakable taste of “fresh.” The people in the kitchen obviously liked their job and took real pride in delivering a delicious meal without a lot of hoopla. Prices were somewhat moderate, the oysters were $12.99 and the tacos were $16.99. The menu offered six vegetarian entrees along with more robust salmon, beef, and chicken plates.
