That was a great report, Tom! You figured out those song names much better than I was going to, especially
Nessun Dorma, an Italian opera song. And you put me in the mood to finally write my report tonight.
May 11 pre-show:I was traveling with my dad. We had restaurants to try and people to meet in Auburn, Alabama. We drove together from there to Peachtree City on the day of Lisa Kelly's concert. Upon getting to town, we immediately checked into a hotel and I started getting dressed in my green suit for the concert.
May 11 show:I was at the Table R with Tom, Scott Taylor, and my dad. A friendly guy at the table to the left of us shared cookies with us and pointed out whenever Lisa Kelly's kids were on stage.
My favorite song of the Lisa Kelly concert was
Moondance. It was a duet with Lisa Kelly and Trevor Martin. I kept laughing because Trevor Martin and Lisa Kelly were doing this hilarious flirtatious choreography during the song. That song fades away at the end, and I found it funny that Lisa implemented that by walking off the stage and slowly lowering her voice! Another reason I liked that song is because I wasn't expecting to hear it, and it's a song that I strongly associate with my swing dancing days in college at the University of Illinois.
Trevor Martin is a slim guy with a suit that fits well. There is some kind of chemistry between him and Lisa Kelly: during the concert, she told us about the day he came to ask for a job at the voice academy, and she said something to the effect that she definitely wanted to hire this gorgeous man, and "you'll know why when you see him".
Hallelujah was a Lisa Kelly solo. That's another song that I liked, but I could not appreciate it fully because the rain started during that song and I spent a good chunk of time donning my poncho. I wouldn't say I was struggling, but it was harder than I thought it would be. For anyone not familiar with the song, here is the
performance by Alexandra Burke. I have sung this at karaoke before.
I also loved hearing Lisa sing
Fields of Gold and
Caledonia because of the connection to Celtic Woman.
The two Riverdance dance routines were pretty great too. At the live sofa chat the next day, Scott Porter told us that in any previous years, the dancers at the academy would not have been talented enough to pull those off.
May 12: meet and greetI got to meet Lisa Kelly and Chloë Agnew for the first time the next day at the meet and greet event they held at the Lisa Kelly Voice Academy!
After hugging each, I told them they were both legends to me, told Lisa that I love how loud and clear her voice is, said that I loved hearing Moondance and the classic Celtic Woman songs, and relayed some short messages from Tom and Lisa Lambe. As I was leaving, Chloë complimented my suit.
It was fun to hang out in the lobby of her academy and see all sorts of awards Lisa Kelly has won from her Celtic Woman days. (I took pictures of several.) They served us some nice snacks, including some beautiful sugar cookies that said "Lisa & Chloe" in the icing. My dad almost talked me into taking a cookie home and framing it on my wall, lol!
May 12: live sofa chatAfter the meet and greet, we were invited to go deeper into the building for the live chat: behind the voice academy area is a raised stage where they probably teach Irish dancing. There was also a setup for aerial yoga on the stage.
We sat on some old church pews that were painted white and facing the stage. Lisa and Chloë sat on a couch on stage and chatted about various things, and took a lot of questions from the audience. I did not ask any questions myself. I kept thinking someone should get them side tables, because they were drinking coffee and putting their cups on the floor!
This event was
not streamed on Facebook, which meant that Lisa Kelly could speak candidly about things she doesn't like. She complained about quite a few things which I won't repeat. I'd like to think I got a sniff of some genuine Irish craic.
May 12: exploring Peachtree CityAfter that event ended, my Dad and I explored Peachtree City. I wanted to do this in order to figure out why Lisa Kelly chose to settle there.
We had a tasty lunch at Zoës Kitchen, which Lisa Kelly mentioned as being one of her favorite restaurants in a recent Facebook live chat.
We noticed that Peachtree City has a pretty low population density: the homes are generally built on big lots, and there are big lakes in the city too. There are lots of big trees everywhere. Another charming thing about the city is the network of wide sidewalks that are built so that the residents can get everywhere via golf cart! We saw quite a few people riding their golf carts on these trails. One couple told us that they barely use their actual car anymore.
We found a war memorial by city hall (seeing war memorials on trips is my thing). We visited Picnic Park and got a nice view of Lake Peachtree. We had a second lunch at Marco's Pizza and visited a small regional airport. At the end of the day, my dad drove me to the Atlanta airport so I could catch my flight home.
Next time, I'd like to go on that trail that Tom mentioned and also check out the Line Creek Nature Area.