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Author Topic: Review: Houston April 16th  (Read 1602 times)
Scott
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« on: April 17, 2012, 08:16PM »


For me there were two shows at Houston.  My intermission seat upgrade made for a big difference, most especially for sound but also for perspective.  I am glad I had BOTH seats; sure it's fun to be up near the front for the whole show but sometimes you can see things differently by being further back, as I'll explain shortly.

After an incredible Sunday BBQ with a bunch of other fans (thank you to dear friend Susan for hosting us all!) I stayed the night at Roy's.  My day really began at about 4:45am when a severe thunderstorm hit the Houston area, and I never really got back to sleep after that.  Roy and I spent the morning and early afternoon watching concert videos and finally Chloe's solo DVD as it rained with varying intensity through the day.  Finally it was time to head to the forum dinner at Hard Rock Cafe for 4 o'clock, and just as always seems to happen with Celtic Woman, the weather cleared just in time.

We had a great get-together, one of the largest of the tour: Cindy's dad, Rita's sister-in-law Karen, and Roy's co-worker Jeff came as well to join us.  All three of them had never seen a Celtic Woman show before (I had tried to bring an acquaintance from north Houston to join us as well but she couldn't get the time off).  Also with us were Jeremy, Rita, Tink, Coren, Lester, Selina and mom, Edd Nesbitt, and Rachel - all of whom hadn't seen the Believe tour yet.  Also present were veterans Cindy, Lu, Donna, Roy, and yours truly.  Several more were to join us at the venue later.  We also got pics in front of the tour trailer parked outside the venue.  I was becoming very conscious now of the clock as it was just a half hour until show time.  We did take a minute to talk to drummer Ray Fean outside the backdoor... strange that he'd be outside so late, not even dressed yet.  We all shook hands with him and a few people even got pictures with him.  Roy made sure his friend Jeff got to shake Ray's hand... haha Jeff was meeting cast members and he hadn't even had his first show yet!  But it was now time to rush into the venue and get ready for the show.

Jones Hall is a modern downtown symphony hall in the heart of Houston's Theater District.  The interior lobby was spacious but sadly the bathroom facilities and water bubblers were placed in extremely inaccessible places on lower levels with stairwells barely three feet wide... totally inadequate for the needs of an intermission audience.  I had seen website "seat views" from various seat positions in the theater and thought I understood the floor layout but when I actually entered the theater I was shocked... there were NO aisles at all.  Entry was only available through corridors that ran along the periphery of the theater with multiple doors direct to the rows.  Roy assured me that they didn't do late seating and he was right, an usher stood by each side of the venue to restrict late entry.  The ceiling was very high, easily as high as Dallas with some sound shapes on the ceiling which could be raised or lowered to provide acoustic control.  Enormous speaker banks were flanking the stage and I would get a world of enlightenment about what they could do later.  The balcony was two-tiered and set well back with "wings" extending out to the sides.  The stage was perhaps four feet high and about average width and depth.  There were stage-access stairwells to the extreme sides only with no center stairs from orchestra to stage.  The pit was in name only, with no real differentiation between pit rows and orchestra rows.  One interesting feature was that the seats rolled back for slight reclining; the whole place reminded me of a movie theater.

I went down front to spend some time with other forum fans, and met up with Gillian and her friend Caitlyn whom I had met at the Houston show two years before; Gillian was to have her first M&G tonight.  Also I met up with Mark (Sidepocket) and his wife (and thank you again for the kind words about my Dallas review).  This was the first show on the Believe Tour for all of them.  Also Mark's daughter and granddaughter had gotten tickets in the balcony and waved to us.  I made my way up to my seat, row D far to piano-side.  I would have Roy on one side and Edd on the other, with Lester in front of me.  With the four-row pit, row D is actually like 8 rows back, which wasn't bad although most of the forum fans were in the first two rows on band-side.  I also noticed that there were a number of seats in closer rows, especially several in row 3.  The local PBS director came out with the usual speech, but when he asked who had gotten their seats through PBS I took note of where the "dividing line" seemed to be between PBS seats and non-PBS seats; I was seated back far enough tonight I would have a chance to test a little theory I'd been wondering about on this tour.  But anyway it was now time for the show to begin and for many forum fans to finally get their first taste of the Believe Tour.

"Awakening" seemed to have less of the piano accompaniment that Shane had used the night before... during "The Foxhunter" I looked about and noticed that it seemed the clapping along was mostly coming from the PBS seats; I had been wondering about this very thing for some time, but anyway Mairead was as energized as I've ever seen her and she even noticed us way up in row D... during "Sailing" Andy used a lot more of his cymbals, I can't decide if I like it more or not, but of course I love the song and the ladies who sing it... "TAR" was done completely from up on stage; with the layout they really had no choice; but it was still amazingly fun and you could watch this song twenty times and still not catch everything... Edd didn't realize that Mairead had revived "Granuaile's Dance" for this tour and he gasped excitedly when he recognized it... to me the sound wasn't really all that great in this theater, especially in the early songs of the First Act: they did do a sound check when they set up, didn't they?

The crowd wasn't bad really, but it hadn't been anything like Dallas just two nights before.  At intermission after spending time with the others I moved down to an empty row 3 edge seat on piano side, about 5 rows ahead of where I'd been.  I made sure Edd got a seat that was two seats over from me with a "civilian" in between; the poor guy must have wondered what he'd done to get these two nuts on either side of him LOL.  Roy and Lester elected to stay up in their row C and D seats; Roy especially wanted to get a different view of the whole show from our usual excellent seats of this tour.  My own ISU seat had no seats in front of it, and was less than ten feet from the edge of the stage; the girls would be hearing from me now for sure!

Anthony had no choice except to start from the back of the stage for "Amazing Grace"; it was during this song that I realized that I was even closer to the speakers than I was to the usuable parts of the stage; I was maybe six feet from the speakers and I was absolutely smashed back by the sound: they had to wipe me off the floor haha... at the end of "Spaceman" I could hear Rachel cheering clear across the theater... I am almost positive they are changing the order of the songs on this tour; was "Walking the Night/The World Falls Away" really always the third song of the second act?? Anyway it was beautiful, which I think you probably could have guessed... Oh my gosh "The Water Is Wide" was so amazing tonight, Mairead was in a perfect position to see all of us on piano-side, especially Edd and I and she gave a look of recognition to both of us; this song is done by the amazing Susan AND the equally amazing Mairead... "Circle Of Life" was done about as dramatically as always, but being in front of the speakers was just awesome for this song... Chloe found an extra something to give to "Ave Maria" tonight, and the crowd was very good with quite a few standing O's for it, but it wasn't Dallas where the entire building was on it's feet; ah well you can't win 'em all... at the beginning of "The Parting Glass" when Lisa tells them this song this is the "last song" there was a loud "NO!" from much of the venue which just about summed up our feelings... The entire place clapped along to "Encore Medley" and sitting in front of the speakers made this as awesome as the Songs From the Heart finale at Austin last year, when the speakers blew me out of my seat... but this wasn't quite the end for me; since there was no need to sit down after the Finale Edd and I stood alongside the people in the front row, which placed me now just two feet from the amps and I rested my elbow on the stage as Chloe bade us goodnight and started into the "Ceili Reprise"; my ears will be ringing from this for the next month LOL.

I didn't have a M&G for tonight, but Roy and I did get to speak briefly with James.  Somehow talk got to what might happen next year, and I told him I hoped he'd be back next year with them.  James is one of the most personable gentlemen in the business and the combination of him and Bubba has made the Meet and Greets far better than they used to be.  Please Madstone, keep James on the Celtic Woman tours!

The drummers gave Jeremy a couple drumsticks; this had been a glorious evening for the junior fans.  Some of us made our way out to the lobby to watch Anthony; we ended up back at the Hard Rock Cafe for the aftershow, and I must give a huge thanks to the staff of this place; they re-opened their kitchen to accomodate us for our needs.  We sat and talked til well past midnight.  I want to say now that it's harder for me to say goodbye to my fan friends than it is to say goodbye to Celtic Woman; but then it's not really goodbye, it's merely "til we meet again."  I must give thanks to my far-away friends for coming out to Houston to be with us Texans for the show, but I must also give special thanks to dear friend Roy for making this Houston ForumFest a smashing, total success.  Thanks Roy!

It was a whirlwind three days of Celtic Woman for me.  Perhaps its fitting for me that it was two shows, bookending a Sunday that had no actual show but did have a great gathering of fans; I am so blessed to have had times like these.

This marks six shows on this tour for me now, and forty-five shows of Celtic Woman.  I have two more coming up, in less than two weeks: both at Las Vegas, the finale of the Spring 2012 Tour.  I will do my best to give the girls a good send off, as will we all.  Until then, as Lisa Lambe says: "May the road rise to meet you."



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