Thanks for the detailed, organized, and timely write-ups, Tom!
Musician tally:On the back left side of the stage, there were 6 musicians: Ray Fean on drums, Tommy Buckley on guitar, a piano player, a woodwind player, a bass guitar player, an upright bass player, and another guitar player if I recall correctly. One of the performers had an accordian too. Caitríona Frost posted some
pictures of herself and Anthony Byrne with the band.
On the back right side, there was Caitríona Frost on drums (
picture) and 20 members of an orchestra. I think they said it was the "Ireland National Orchestra" but a quick Google search doesn't find a group with exactly that name. The orchestra was mostly string instruments, and included a full-sized harp.
Anthony Byrne was on bagpipes. There were also four drummers and three bagpipers from the New Ross & District Pipe Band, and Anthony's father Denis (from the Arklow pipe band) was performing too. Anthony posted a
picture of himself with most of these performers on Instagram, and
nrpbofficial posted the same thing with some more info. Their kilts were gorgeous.
There were 12 choir members dressed in black and not equipped with microphones. (What was the name of their choir?) They were very young-looking and one of the girls had striking eyebrows so we thought she might be related to Megan when she walked by us in line on day one.
There were 4 choir members with microphones, who also did Celtic tap-dancing and assisted with lifting Mairead for a jump (right?). They are: Carl Maguire, James Greenan, Alan McGrath, and colfarell. There is a
picture of them with the stars, and a
picture of them in front of the castle.
And of course, we had the 4 stars: Mairéad Carlin, Éabha McMahon, Tara McNeill, Megan Walsh.
So we had a total of 6+21+9+12+4+4 =
56 musicians!
There were two songs where they actually got all the musicians on stage:
Going Home and
Parting Glass. Both songs were spectacular, and the whole audience did a standing ovation for each. (And I think it was like that on both nights, Tom.)
The four New Ross drummers came out during Éabha's song
Moorlough Shore and I think they helped make the song really cool.
Commentary on the act 1 dresses:Mairéad Carlin is now the most senior member of the group, and she has the most natural contrast because of her dark black hair and pale skin. So I guess it makes sense to accentuate that contrast by putting her in a dark blue dress (which stands out against her skin), and then put her in the center of the singers (as they did in at least one song), to make her be the the leader and eye-catcher of the group. Then you have Éabha and Megan wearing similar green dresses, and having sort of similar hair colors, so when you put one on each side of Mairéad, you achieve a certain balance. The heights work out well too, because Mairéad is the shortest while the other two singers are similar. I expect to see promo photographs with Mairéad in the middle like that.
Miscellaneous notes:Tara danced during Love & Honour. (Thanks for pointing it out, Tom, because I missed it the first night!) When I saw it on night two, I thought she was one beat late, since the drums would do a big hit and she would do a dramatic move with her whole body on the beat after it. We'll see how it looks on the DVD.
The first tune in
Tara's Tunes had measures with 3 beats instead of 4. I know because I tried to tap my feet to it. Is that a first for Celtic Woman?
Pre-recorded sounds: At two points in the show, I heard things that sounded to my ear like they must have been pre-recorded. The first instance of this was the ambient notes in the background of the opening song,
Ancient Land (no one was playing a keyboard). The second instance was the tap-dancing sounds in Enchanted Way, which you hear as soon as the dancers start dancing, but which stop at some point before the dancers are done. Those sounds just seemed a bit too metallic to be coming from shoes hitting the stage, and they were maybe slightly off from what the dancers were doing.
Tracie, my notes say there was a drone for Mná Na hÉireann. I think the drones were only on the first night, so they did not get an aerial shot of the bigger crowd on night two.
Experience:It was really great to meet my fellow fans, Gregg, Tracie, Tom, Lisa, and Matt, at the concerts and at lunch. I appreciated having some people to nerd out with over Celtic Women.
On night one I got to sit in the front row of the little angled clump of chairs on the left side. I was on the far left so I was the closest audience member to any of the girls who came out to the left wing of the stage, and I thought I made eye contact with three of them. On night two, I got to sit in the first row of the little clump of angled chairs on the right side. As Tom mentioned, those were the best seats in the house because they were really close to the stage (
sorry, Susan!). After one of the songs, I could hear dresses rustling as the girls walked off. I had a self-conscious feeling, knowing that if I shout anything during the applause, the stars of the show might hear it!
I walked right past Susan on the way to the bathroom during interval and smiled at her but didn't try to start anything since she was busy with other fans and probably needed to get away. I didn't actually meet any celebrities, but that is fine.
Matt and Lisa were sitting on my left on night two. The PBS personality woman was chatting with them off camera during the interval and asked if they were lucky to get those seats, so I butted in and said that we were all lined up starting at 4pm. The PBS person asked me where I was from.
I definitely had cameras pointed at me on both nights during the final standing ovation, so maybe you'll see me at the end of the TV special or DVD.
At the end of the second night, I got some people sitting near me to take this
picture of me in front of the castle.
My favorite
Ancient Land song at the moment is
Mná Na hÉireann (Women of Ireland). Every song they did was truly excellent, but the first time I heard that one it moved me a bit more than the others. I don't even remember how it sounded, I just remember really liking it and putting a star in my notes. That song was the second song in the second act, so it was the perfect time for me to get over the sheer excitement of being at the concert and appreciate the music itself a little more.
I am super optimistic about Celtic Woman's direction after seeing the amazing job that everyone did with the Ancient Land concert!