Celtic Woman

[music | Yo-Yo Ma / Edgar Meyer Mark O'Connor - Misty Moonlight Waltz]

Celtic Woman? Really, you sure? I'll admit that this one was all for Natalie initially, but I'm really glad I went, it was fun, they are super talented, and the entire ensemble was really entertaining. And when it gets down to it, I just really love watching talented people do whatever it is they do. They'll start making it into my mix now I'm sure.

Had dinner at The Barking Crab, then walked down the the Pavilion . Food was good, I haven't had good fried clams in a long time.

I didn't find out about this show until Tuesday or Wednesday this week, and I mentioned it to Natalie who immediately got us 4th row center for tonights show. Based on that we expected it to be a ghost town, but really it was very crowded. For once it seemed like we were totally on the younger side of the crowd (that's being charitable). Usually I'm the oldest bastard in the room lately (see Panic! at the Disco) at 31.

I knew nothing about this group going in except that I'd seen them on PBS, they had very pretty voices, and my wife liked them. I had no idea they have been #1 on the US Billboard "World Music" charts for like the last 14 months, for instance.

As for the music, I have to say I enjoyed the standards they did better than much of the original music. At points it seemed similar to "Up With People" (or "Hooray for Everything" on the Simpsons) at some points. I think you get that with this kind of show (Barrage [which I also really liked but was, let's call a spade a spade, kind of corny at points], Riverdance). But the individual solo performances of the featured soloists was where a lot of where the show came together for me. Everyone got a good showcase, and they played to their strengths.

As far as the ensemble tunes, their Orinoco Flow is probably as close as anyone under that tent would ever get to seeing Enya perform live. Since the only way to recreate her layered sound is with like 30 people, well, that's what they did, and it worked very well.

The audience reaction was great, they really moved a lot of the folks in the audience, it was great.

And I can't not mention the percussionists, which were amazing, and the rest of the musical ensemble. Their guitarist made me thing of someone old and French, I have no idea why. And they had the hardest working wind musician today, I'm convinced. 5 different whistles, plus bagpipes, plus string accompaniment, what was that, a mandolin? Go to their site, see the individual bio's, be impressed as hell.

Natalie is working on a collage now from concert tickets of shows we've been to, plus whatever other junk we end up with (drumstick here, imprinted guitar pick there), it's going to be large, though apparently we've only been to about 40 shows together, which seems low by like half.