A capacity crowd was on hand at the Palace Theater in Cleveland Saturday night April 6 to see Celtic Woman’s new World Tour 2013.. A WVIZ-sponsored event, this show featured a meet & greet with all four soloists which preceded the show, rather than followed it—a first for me and a delightful change, removing the challenge of trying to guess which two soloists would attend and trying to manage autographs accordingly. I’m sure it is much easier on cast and crew as well.
Thanks to some timely traffic tips for the Cleveland area from forum member Barb Kantartzas, I knew to leave early due to road construction in and around Cleveland. I thus managed to get to the Wyndam Hotel around 3:30 p.m. After parking my car and heading into the hotel the first people I ran into were two forum members: Kelly (Scuilly) and Mike (Cash), who were headed to eat. We talked for a while. With this show they were ending their run of shows this tour, while mine was just beginning. Thankfully, our paths overlapped at this show. They had heard from Mike (Mr. Peabody) that there might be a forum pre-show dinner. Since I had changed cell phones, I did not have his number on my new phone. In my haste to get on the road, neither did I have my lap top with me.
When I got to the room, I received a call from Patty ( aka the Akron Mall Lady) Tucker, who thankfully had Mike’s number and called him and gave him my room number. In that way we coordinated dinner at Flannery’s with David and Patty. Our delightful waitress there graciously took a photo of us (below).
We were dressed to go straight to the venue for the M&G, but to my abject horror, when we got to the car I discovered I had some sort of grease stain about 4 inches square on my pants which would definitely be visible in the M&G picture! I still have no idea how I got it, as I was very conscious of not getting anything on my clothing for that very reason! So they dropped Mike and I off at the hotel, where I quickly went up and changed. Then Mike and I were off on foot to the Playhouse Square venue about 2 blocks away.
Walking those couple of blocks was like walking through a wind tunnel, having a giant hair dryer pointed at you. I should have checked my hair in the restroom prior to lining up for the M&G, but I didn’t.—just combed my hair with my fingers. Consequently, my hair was unkept in the shot—my first ever with all four soloists at once! I think Mike was probably thinking, “Why should I tell him?”.
As we were gathering for the pre-show M&G, Ella from WVIZ, Cleveland’s PBS station arrived, along with her husband and son. I had talked extensively with her husband during the Cleveland M&G last year and so was glad to see him again. After pleasantries, it was time for the meet & greet! Names were checked off the list and in we went. Tour manager Ken Craig addressed the group, explaining the procedure we were to follow. Photos were to be taken with our own cameras which had to be preset so that all they had to do was point and click. I was a bit apprehensive as mine was set to go off after being idle for 30 seconds and I didn’t know right off the sequence to reset it to stay on. Luckily, a touch of the button served to bring it back into action.
I was in front of Mike in the line, of which I was glad, as who wants to follow the bearer of a gift of chocolate! I introduced myself to Ken, whom I was meeting for the first time and who was helping out by holding our items while the pictures were made and then greeting us as we left. I was met with hugs from all four girls and exchanges of pleasantries with each. Lisa asked about my foot injury, reminding the others that I had had a boot on my right foot when they had seen me in December. I told her my foot was much improved and getting better, though I would not be joining Craig on stage tonight.
I was grateful that she had remembered. I told them it was my first show of the tour and all my others were during this month. I said I particularly look forward to seeing them at the Kentucky shows, which include this year for the first time two shows at the Eastern Kentucky University Arts Center in Richmond as well as the Louisville shows, all of which I have attended since 2007. After ascertaining that my photo came out well, I reluctantly tore myself away from them, as they told me they hoped I enjoyed the show. Oh, would I!
After Mike came out, we awaited the Tuckers, Cash, Scuilly, Barb K and her friend and we all went over next door to the Palace Theater together for the eagerly-awaited show!
The seats at the Palace are really packed in together with little leg room. No room to hang up our Fiddler Crossing jackets for a little free advertising.
I am seated next to Mike, who insisted on the aisle seat for some reason. On my other side are Patty and Dave Tucker. Cash and Scuilly are a couple of rows in front of us. However, a block of four together just might be enough to cause others to join us during standing ovations!
Chloe greets the audience with remarks about how Cleveland was the first tour stop for Celtic Woman when they went on the road in 2005 and thanks them for the support over the years. The sold-out show is definitive evidence that they have it!
As the show begins, I quickly see that it really is a new show, with even the previously-familiar numbers sporting changes in the arrangements, personnel involvement and choreography. Awakening from Believe: how could you possibly top a beginning with Máiréad haunting strains for an introduction? Dulaman followed with a surprise: the male reply sung by…(drum roll)…drummer Ray Fean! Nary a note awry either! Nocturne is next—the return of this one from Believe a must with Chloe’s moving rendition.
My first time to hear Caledonia introduced and sung by beautiful Susan McFadden! She did not disappoint! I had been captivated by the song since seeing it sung by fabulous Lisa Kelly during A New Journey, beginning in 2006. That is a hard act to follow, but Susan does it credibly and does not suffer by comparison, even by die-hard Lisa Kelly fans. I hear some guy behind me remarking how beautiful she is. No argument there!
Granuaile’s Dance is kept in the new show! Máiréad is full of energy tonight, as we counted twelve high-speed spins by her tonight. How does she do it? Most fiddlers couldn’t play it that well standing still! A considerable number of the audience join us in a standing ovation!
New arrangements of The New Ground featuring the pipes of Tommy Martin and of Orinoco Flow followed. The latter featured the solos added beginning with Song from the Heart. The Coast of Galacia has been thankfully retained and Máiréad makes the most of it! How wonderful for those in the crowd seeing it for the first time!
Teir Abhaile Riu (TAR in our short-hand designation) was a highlight as usual! The crowd was delighted with the opening antics of Lisa and Chloe as they came up the side aisle. As she approached the front Lisa plopped in Mike’s lap, as he had so un-subtly hinted a request for, as Máiréad said, during the Meet & Greet. While she was there she reached over and put her hand on my shoulder (so as to console me, as she no doubt perceived I needed, having ceded the seat to Mike). She gestured to me during the “handsome men surrounding me” lyrics. That smoothed things over for me.
The song drew a standing ovation, though I didn’t turn to see how far into the crowd it extended. It is a definite crowd favorite and rightly so!
The first act ended with a rousing performance of Mo Ghile Mear. During this one in particular the choir’s presence is noted, with the two new female members Sarah Gannon and Edel Murphy really showing what they can do, joining veterans Dermot Kiernan and Craig Ashurst (whose dancing abilities are as yet unleashed to some un-suspecting audience members). Amazing that such full sound could emanate from such as small choir. The crowd is roused by this upbeat ending.
During the intermission we are packed in too tightly to move around much and speak to others, so we talk to other audience members seated nearby. Some ask about Lisa Kelly and we tell of her new endeavors with the Lisa Kelly Voice Academy in Georgia. She obviously has many fans wondering where she is, as the PBS stations were apparently loath to declare her absence during their pledge-drive broadcasts.
Amazing Grace provides a familiar and rousing start to the second half of the show. There are stairs at the front of the stage for bagpiper Anthony Byrne to ascend and the crowd enjoys his passing in their midst. Loud applause, but the lights go down quickly, so as to perhaps discourage the slight impiety of an ovation on a hymn.
She Moved Through the Fair followed in a thoughtful new arrangement emphasizing pipes. It compares favorably to Meav’s and Orla’s versions with which many of us are familiar.
Susan next provides a delightful introduction to the Broadway Tribute, singing I Dreamed a Dream, with which the crowd was very enthusiastic, perhaps concurring with their recently having seen the movie version of Les Miserables (my theory at least). The Circle of Life was wonderfully done, sung by Lisa, who followed shortly thereafter with Bridge Over Trouble Waters. Her parts in this show serve to highlight her versatility as singer, dancer and actress. She could not help but be the heartthrob of those in the audience possessed of a heart and one hears such comments more and more these days.
Nil S’en La follows! A newly-arranged version in which the musicians start the song and the choir comes down the aisles before the soloists come out and go into the more familiar rendition from Songs from the Heart.
The crowd is really taken with several particularly energetic performances by Máiréad and Craig Ashurst in their “duel”. By Ray Fean in his Bodrhain rampage; by Anthony Byrne not only on bagpipes but percussion. The versatility of the cast and musicians are really highlighted by this new show.
Chloe is still unparalled in her performance of the lovely Ave Marie, which draws a standing ovation and must. She is in lovely form this tour and never better! As in every city they appear, she owns the hearts of the audience.
Susan does a great job with “The Voice”, a daunting task after the success of Lisa Kelly with the song. A better replacement for Lisa in it could not be found.
The Parting Glass from Believe signals the end of the show is near. Patty just happens to have about a dozen champagne glasses on hand which we hold up at the appropriate moment, as the Burbacher sisters taught us!
The crowd is glad to hear Máiréad tell us that You Raise Me Up is still in the show and charmed at her introduction of it. We will not leave without an encore and so The Mo Ghile Mear Reprise is as rousing an encore as anyone could ask for—this year with the insertion of the dancing solo from Craig which adds a new and much entertaining dimension to it. Not only will they leave singing, but dancing.
Lisa makes my night by blowing kisses to me as she departs the stage! I might well have melted in place and not been able to leave, but Mike and the others managed to get me out of there! So ends my first show of the 2013 World Tour—one which I’ll certainly never forget.
Dave and Patty stop by the stage door and are rewarded by seeing the girls and had a nice conversation with Lisa. They came by the Wyndam afterward and we regale in what we had just experienced. Unbeknownst to me, Dave paid our tab, which I wouldn’t have let him do if I’d known. But when you’ve had a night like we had, you want to share the joy!
My M&G photo with the girls under this tour's new pre-show M&G format!
Forum members Mike Brown, Dave and Patty Tucker and myself at dinner prior to the show.
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