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« on: December 03, 2011, 05:45AM » |
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Quick notes: I made several mistakes in my initial Symphony review, which was done with a definite lack of sleep. Lisa Lambe did a song which did not appear in the program, which I will review in detail tonight; Chloe sang "Silent Night" in Gaelic and not German, and "Little Drummer Boy" was performed by Chloe and Lisa Kelly, not Chloe and Lisa Lambe. Sorry for the errors, it's not like I don't know how to do this haha.
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After getting about six hours of blessed sleep, Mikey Rachel and myself drove down to San Diego to see the Pacific Ocean, which I had never seen before. Mikey was doing this mostly for my benefit, and if we had time we would have toured the U.S.S. Midway which lays in anchor in San Diego Bay, but there wasn't time. Later we joined the group for the forum dinner, at the Temecula Red Lobster. I talked at length with Caitlyn, whose excitability is only surpassed by her love of Celtic Woman. At showtime we were joined by Susan, Cindy, Jeremy, and Cindy's older son Josh who had never attended a CW show. I was again in Row C seat 105, about a seat over from my previous night position, now with Jeremy and Cindy on either side of me.
It all began again with John Page leading the orchestra in a medley of "Polar Express." Once again David Downes came out and let us know that this was still a work in progress and that we were seeing the very beginning of something they had never tried before. He again took his seat at the piano as the four soloists came out and began their performance.
I'm leaving three songs for last. "Auld Laud Sang" deserves a good amount of attention since I failed to detail it on day 1. The other two will be songs reviewed out of order, and I will label them as such when the time comes. I don't do this lightly, I have only done a non-sequential review once before (Red Rocks '09) but I have my reasons which I will state in due time. Also I must admit this order might be off slightly, the program does not follow exactly in sequence but it's close.
Again "Carol Of the Bells" struck with force. It seemed to go smoother than the previous night... "Silent Night" and "White Christmas" were about the same as the previous night, as far as I could tell... "Away In A Manger" was Lisa Lambe with David on piano, Lisa seemed to have slowed the pace somewhat, but it made it even more heartfelt than before... "Ding Dong Merrily On High" also seemed smoother than the night before, again it was clear that the harmonies on the group number had received the attention needed to bring them closer to the mastery that we the fans have come to know... Mairead actually introduced "Shendandoah/The Butterfly" which she had NOT done the night before; I listened carefully for the transition between the two and found that David's piano created the bridge for it... "Little Drummer Boy" will follow later... I had warned Cindy ahead that "The Christmas Song" would blow her away with the power of Lisa's vocals; how do YOU think it came out?... "Christmas Pipes" still didn't resonate with me as being up to par with the DVD version, but it's still great, trust me... "Danny Boy" was introduced with the slightly altered, orchestra-assisted performance... tell you later about "O Holy Night."
The crowd was slightly more into it than the previous night, which is saying something considering the crowd had been rarin' to go the night before as it was. During intermission someone came up to us. I am deducing that the man was smart, because he looked at the gaggle of us standing around and said "You've all probably been to a million shows together, haven't you?" I am not usually someone to come back with the quick answers, but I did quip back with "Only half a million," and then said that yes, many of us attended a bunch of shows and of course we started going on about who we collectively are.
Second Act... Orchestra doing "Sleigh Ride" again, excellent as the night before... Mairead's "In the Bleak Midwinter" led into "The First Noel"; I didn't properly say in the previous review how incredible the ending was on "The First Noel" because it certainly was... "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas" just like the previous night was preceded by some funny banter between the four girls; the song itself was gentle and soothing... this time our crowd didn't quite catch onto Lisa K's instruction on how to sing "Green The Whole Year 'Round" and after our first practice run she gave us her best "mommy" look and said "You can do better than THAT!" hehe so we did; she was pleased with us before it was over LOL... "Granuaile's Dance" was more animated than the night before; there was still no actual leaping around but Mairead did use the entire length of the stage... "Don Oiche Ud I Mbeithil" was again Chloe and Lisa L with Mairead; again they traded the piece back and forth, which is not the way it was done on CD or DVD; oh well, it was still well done... "Ave Maria" was probably about as well done as the previous night, but the response Chloe got was absolutely overwhelming; the entire place gave her a standing ovation and this was NOT some quickie standing-O, this lasted like 30 seconds and I could see Chloe was in tears; it was one of the most heartfelt CW moments I've ever had and it harkened back to that tour finale at Red Rocks in 2009 when the soloists were all overwhelmed by the devotion of the audience... just a minute or so after that, during the opening part of "You Raise Me Up" while Lisa Lambe did her lines, I happened to watch Lisa Kelly for a moment and it looked almost like she was holding back a sob; it nearly caused her to drop her mic, and it's a tribute to the lady that she did her part so well... "O Come All Ye Faithful" was the beneficiary of some slightly improved brass performance on this night, which was true of a couple of songs... tonight's finale was "Let It Snow" which was played almost entirely for fun; only part of the action matched the previous night, and it seemed some of it was spontaneous; the previous night we didn't get Chloe's "YOU TELL 'EM, LIS!" nor Mairead's whispered "Let it snow" but this time we got both and a great ending. Strangely, tonight there was no "Spanish Lady" even though it was listed in the program. Maybe tomorrow...
Now for the out-of-sequence songs:
"Auld Lang Sand" would be right around "Granauile's Dance" in the track list. Lisa Lambe introduced it as a Scottish song that means essentially "once upon a time..." Her accent is incredibly noticeable on this song, I sooo wish they would keep this one for the Believe tour. There is an audience element as well: she said that in Ireland when they sing it, you lock hands with the person beside you, and she asked us to do it, and maybe even sway together as we sing it. So we did, and I locked hands with Jeremy and Cindy and our whole row was swaying along. It was a very fun piece and Lisa Lambe shows a facility with this song that is astounding.
Tonight something happened that I have never seen at a Celtic Woman show, and it was something I don't know if I'll ever see again. Tonight Chloe and Lisa K introduced "Little Drummer Boy" and began by saying that they had in the audience tonight their very own "little drummer boy", Jeremy. I was sitting next to him and Jeremy absolutely was floored by it. I thought he was going to faint. When the song ended I gave them a standing ovation not just for how they sang, but also for what they had done; it was the only time I have ever seen any of the girls deliberately go out of their way to acknowledge an audience member by name from the stage, and to do it for a junior fan like Jeremy was one of the nicest and sweetest things they have ever done, in my opinion.
The girls did "O Holy Night" again, at the end of the first act. Those of you who know me well have heard me say lately, perhaps with boring regularity, that "O Holy Night" is my favorite Christmas song of theirs. I was grateful the first night that they had done it at all, because I had always wanted to hear them do it, even if it was just once. But it hadn't been quite the way I would have wanted it, and I realized later it wasn't really the lack of choir, it was a lack of brass. Well, tonight David and John saw to that and brought back that brass, or at least made it far more noticeable during that rousing part near the end of the song. The result was exactly the song I've wanted to hear for all these years, and there were grateful tears streaming down my face as I gave them a standing ovation. They made another of my wishes come true. It seems Celtic Woman is in the business of doing that.
After the end, the non-Spanish Lady-ish end, Tommie came out on the stage for a moment and signed a few programs. Thanks for giving back to the fans, Tommie. As we filed out, I gave a special Celtic Woman item to JuanV, something I had promised to him, which completed my primary mission for the day.
We again headed over to Denny's for late dinner, this time with a slightly larger group than the night before. This time talk was not quite as much about the show just completed as it was discussions of the future; many of us talked of shows for later in the tour, of Spring shows, and also of the planned fan event for Saturday after the show.
Which leads to the end of this review but not of this story. What a day we have coming up tomorrow: the matinee CW show at Temecula (which for me also happens to be my last CW show for this calendar year), and then later we have the fan gathering at Lu and Donna's house in the Temecula area, so we can all watch the world-premier broadcast of 'Believe' together on a big-screen TV. The key point in that sentence was not "big-screen TV"; it was "TOGETHER". I will be exactly where I would want to be, in the company of other devoted fans, my only regret being that the house can't possibly be large enough to hold all of those who I wish could be there with us... that is, all of you fans who are reading this review. If I could wish all of you there I would, so you could be in fellowship with others who love the power of this music the way I do. But I hope that wherever and whenever you finally get to see the 'Believe' broadcast, know that there are people just like you, who when they get together would welcome you with open arms and open hearts into their midst. Those people are us. And this is the time for us. We are the fans of Celtic Woman.
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