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« on: February 24, 2012, 02:59PM » |
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Lil Lambe Shepherds her Sheep in Charlottesville Va John Paul Jones Arena 2/22/2012
This was my first show of the 2012 BELIEVE! Tour. Like many fans when they experience their first show of a tour, I wondered what changes would be made and how it would differ from past live shows and the recorded DVD from Atlanta. Plus the group had one member missing. What would the new girl be like? Of course I had read all the reviews on various forums. Plus I read reviews from newspapers, thanks to dedicated forum friends who diligently find them then post very convenient and easy to find links on Facebook and the forums. So I sort of knew what to expect, but you still never actually know until you see and hear for yourself. It all started when MrPeabody made a post on one of the forums that he had tickets to sell and they were only $100, and that included meet & greet. That’s a GREAT deal. Can‘t pass that up! Charlottesville isn‘t THAT far from Pittsburgh, well at least not as the crow flies. Those big mountains in between are a bit of an obstacle though. What are the lyrics to that one song “Lord you don’t have to move that mountain, just help me find my way around it”? Or something to that effect. The trip down there did take a bit longer than I thought it might. But I think people more familiar with travel and trip planning would expect a longer trip than I anticipated. A couple of interesting things about the trip down there. As we were rolling along there on the one highway, something suddenly happened on the windshield. It happened very fast. Like “SMACK!“ Then we saw a black rubber windshield wiper blade sort of flapping around by the windshield wiper. We thought it somehow came lose. Then it seemed to fly off to the side, but I could see it still flapping on the passenger side near the mirror, though one end remained attached to the wiper itself. So I opened the window and reached out and grabbed it and pulled it in, hoping not to lose a hand in the process! It wasn’t from our vehicle though! It had flown off from another and stuck near the wiper of ours! Very interesting! Our wipers worked fine. Yes we did test them to make sure, and to see if the wiper blade on our car was still even there!. Then we passed a spot in Virginia with a road stop made so people can view the incredible view of a valley and mountains. Thinking back I wish we stopped to take some photos. Very picturesque. As we got close to the venue, we spotted a sign that said “Lamb Road.” I said “Take it!” But it wasn’t long until we came to a sign that said “Dead End”. A lesson learned here. Its great to follow your heart when it comes to Celtic Woman, but on the way to a show, its better to follow a map! So we arrive at the venue and parking is $15. A bit steep , but I guess the Univ. of Virginia figured they had us. Where else were we going to park? The spot was very convenient and close to the front door. We started looking for MrPeabody to get our tickets and quickly found him right by the main door. We chit-chatted with him a little and he provided us with Susan buttons. Now on the subject of buttons, I used to be really into them. Then I thought it started getting a bit overdone for me. Its fine if people enjoy them. But for me, I like the one from Atlanta that had all 4 ladies on it. Just one button and you support them all. You don’t need one of those girl scout sashes with dozens of buttons pinned there. But when I saw those Susan buttons, I thought “how pretty” You designers did a GREAT job on both of them, though you did have a lot to work with. Her looks are far from being chopped liver. Plus Susan isn’t on the Atlanta button, so I guess if you wish to support her, you need hers. But in the end the buttons slipped my mind as I started thinking about the show. A few others known to attend some shows also showed up. MrPeabody shook more hands this night than Obama or Romney. You would think he was running for office. We head in and I head to the merchandise table for a program. I did not see anyone selling them off to the side. Later I did spot the one guy walking through the seating area selling just them. I could have saved myself a wait in line. I had to go down some steps to the second level, then enter there and walk down more steps to the floor. Some of the steps were metal and a bit small and shaky, and I thought of the Bryce Jordan Center at Penn State. That’s how the steps were there too. Then I started looking around and noticed a few other things that reminded me of that Penn State venue. The lighted advertisement boards circling around the place on the edge of the second level, flashing away promoting various upcoming shows, including Riverdance. The way the seats on the floor were set up. The way they had big black curtains partitioning off the unused sections of the arena. Just a LOT reminded me of Penn State. So I get down there on the floor and start walking to the front. An usher sort of stepped up and asked if he could help me. I said “Like Bob Uecker, I must be in the front ROOOOOOW!” He looked at me like “Yeah right, you’re an idiot!” though he didn’t actually say that. Then he read my seat location, his face expression changed, and he then said “HEY! You ARE in the front row!”. Hashanah So I got up there and I am front row with Annie, MrPeabody, Rob, and a couple others. A couple other groupies were in seats behind us. They had steps set up dead center coming down from the stage, and the first row of seats were back a bit from the stage, providing a relatively large amount of room there. That turned out to be good, but that’s jumping ahead. The stage set up looked like Atlanta, though the decorations seemed to be a bit smaller and not as regal looking. Plus it was all smaller, I guess so they could adapt to smaller stage areas. The center steps up on stage, coming down from the ’arch’ to center stage, seemed to be steeper and narrower than Atlanta too. But I am jumping ahead again. The show started with The Awakening, as one might expect. A small issue with the spotlights right off the bat. The first one came on Chloe at the correct time, but the other 2 seemed slightly delayed for Lil Lambe and Susan. But the rest of the song went well. I got my first look at Susan and thought that she looked slightly different from the pictures and from what I watched of her via YouTube. Perhaps the hairstyle, or the lighting, I don’t know. But that wasn’t a bad thing. She is a very beautiful and talented young lady. Second song was Dulaman. (I think, if I make a mistake on set list or song order, and I will, its because I didn’t take notes during the show, I waited until intermission and the end to quickly write a few down. I find it too tough to write in the dark and my writing is chicken scratch anyway, so it ends up illegible.) Lil Lambe was ON FIRE tonight! WOW! Not that the other ladies weren’t doing well, but it was just one of those nights when one of the performers LEAP out at you, (Lil Lambe Leap!) and just stand out. I am glad Dulaman is back. And on the topic of Lil Lambe, this is a great place to discuss TAR., also done first half. On TAR, Lil Lambe comes out from the left, on the floor section, and sings a bunch of la-la-la kind of stuff. She makes her way across the front, so people front row on the left get a very close and personal performance from her on this song. Chloe then la-la-las out from the right side, and people on that end get a great up close performance from her for a minute. Its VERY cool and effective. Once again CW comes up with something great. Then Susan starts la-la-laing from up on top of the main steps by the arch as she walks down to center stage, then Lil Lambe and Chloe head on up the steps leading from the floor to center stage, were they all unite for the rest of the song. But when she was there at floor level, Lil Lambe seemed esp. interactive with a certain groupie. Maybe she is forgetting those sailors in Galway in favor of computer experts from Pennsylvania? I thought they might need to call paramedics to resuscitate him! But even beyond this song, Lil Lambe was very interactive with the crowd all night, esp. us ‘regulars’ in the front row. Annie got a lot of Lil Lambe Love all night. Also on TAR Lil Lambe sat down in either an empty front row seat or next to the person sitting in it (I couldn’t see, but someone told me a little kid was there) and sang. Some pretty cool quick thinking and interaction! Sadly, other than us groupies, or ‘regulars’ or whatever we should be called, the crowd was not very interactive with the performers. Mairead did 2 solos first half, She got some mild clapping on the first, but on the second the crowd seemed asleep. And I mean out cold. Like knocked out by Mike Tyson. Or as someone joked to me, like they were given valium. I spotted a lot of empty seats as well. Very sad from that perspective. By the way, Mairead was her usual self, as Star Trek’s Mr Spock might say “Pure Energy”. Its funny because in the past, I have seen some shows with dead crowds, but then Mairead comes on and sparks the fire. Almost like lightning striking dry kindle. But not in Charlottesville on Feb 22, 2012. And while on the subject of Mairead, she starts her spin time slow now, then accelerates until she hits light speed. Its tougher to count them. Maybe she is having some fun with people who try? The group did well with Danny Boy. Always a favorite to see in the show. They again use stools to sit on as they sing it, sort of like they did for the Christmas show. They ended the first half with Mo Ghile Mear. And that’s always fun to see their juiced up version with light s flashing. They didn’t do the shoulder wiggle and head turn though as the drums ‘battled’. I could have sworn they did so in past shows. (or was that the jazzed up Orinoco Flow?) But not a big deal. Still a great performance.
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