Let Him In!

Is there something in your eye? Oh, it's just Carlos Vives, singing "Let me in through your gaze" -- you know, the windows to your soul and all that -- a lyric from the song and album Déjame Entrar (Let Me In) that earned the Colombian soap-star-turned-vallenato-singer two Latin Grammys at last month's ceremony. You may have seen Miami resident Vives around town, biking across the MacArthur Causeway, dropping his kids off at school, popping in for an impromptu gig at some little club. Or you may have watched him perform during the broadcast of the first or the third Latin Grammys, giving it up for the cameras with his band La Provincia. But the very best place to see Vives is live, onstage in a full extravaganza. Part Colombian hootenanny, part folk revival, Vives's pop take on that old accordion music is quite an ear- and an eyeful.