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Author Topic: Celtic Woman: Ancient Land DVD (PBS Release): Write-up  (Read 6352 times)
CWazyTom
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« on: December 10, 2018, 06:24:57 PM »

I watched the Celtic Woman: Ancient Land DVD release from Shop PBS today!

The Ancient Land DVD from PBS has the full concert (all the songs that were recorded at the castle).

But the general release (at least the Blu-Ray release) will likely have additional content that the PBS release currently does NOT have.

If you're looking for a review of the portion of the concert that was shown by PBS, see:
http://www.celticwomanforum.net/index.php?topic=617.0

The mini-write-up below contains spoilers for the Shop PBS release of the DVD.


--- SPOILERS BELOW ---
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The Celtic Woman: Ancient Land DVD release from PBS has the full concert (ALL the songs recorded at Johnstown Castle while the audience was in attendance).

That includes the 3 additional solos that were recorded on night #2 at the castle that were not on the PBS special:

* County Down (Mairead Carlin)
* Faith's Song (Megan Walsh)
* Garden of Eden (Eabha McMahon)

I know of at least one person that was in the audience that got a clear close-up during the additional songs that did not appear on PBS.  ;)

I knew there was going to be quite a bit of bonus content for Ancient Land, so I was surprised when I started up the DVD and found that there were only two menu items. Something like:

* Play concert
* Track selection

I checked the track selection hoping to see bonus content in the track listing.

I did not.

I did maintain a measure of hope during the DVD that there was hidden bonus content at the end of the concert.

There wasn't.

This is likely why the general DVD release hasn't been announced yet. I think they're still working on the extra content. I'm unsure as of the time I'm writing this if the extra content will be on the DVD or only on the Blu-Ray. I can only say that we know from multiple very reliable sources that there is quite a bit of extra content and that it's NOT on the PBS release of the DVD.



Track List

1. Ancient Land
2. Homeland
3. Moorlough Shore
4. Ae Fond Kiss
5. Amazing Grace
6. Long Journey Home
7. Sive
8. Shenandoah
9. County Down
10. Love & Honour
11. Ballroom of Romance
12. Follow Me
13. Mná na hÉireann
14. Over the Rainbow
15. Tara's Tunes
16. Danny Boy
17. Garden of Eden
18. Faith's Song
19. Siúil A Rún
20. Be Still
21. Going Home
22. The Enchanted Way
23. The Parting Glass




Additional Tracks

The 3 additional tracks are definitely worth getting.

County Down is a beautiful Mairead Carlin solo. The melody is soothing and rolls gracefully up and down like the hills of the Irish countryside. As mentioned in my writeup of the CD, the turns in this song are really pretty. Mairead's voice is simply enchanting.

Garden of Eden is an incredibly fun Eabha McMahon solo and it's one that she wrote (prior to joining Celtic Woman in 2015). I couldn't imagine the arrangement being any better than it was. It was absolutely fantastic! This is definitely one of my favourite tracks from both the CD and the DVD.

Faith's Song is a moving solo performed by Megan Walsh. Megan is accompanied by a choir, dressed in black behind her. Just as she did on the album, Megan shows off her stunning pop voice in this song. She has a strong voice and although she may have been nervous at the castle, that didn't stop her from projecting a lot of confidence when she performed. Listening to her makes me feel confident in other aspects of my life and I think she's the first member of Celtic Woman to ever have that particular effect on me. The album version has really grown on me, but the closeups of her singing her heart out on that stage add soooo much more to the song. This is really well done!

The Parting Glass was a song that did appear in the PBS special. What wasn't shown on the PBS special was something that happened before the song at the castle: a dedication to Dave Kavanagh by the girls. Sweet Mairead got emotional during the dedication. It was one of many treasured "live Castle experience" moments that Mairead provided, but this was the only one of those moments to make it to the DVD. They pulled away to a mid-range shot as she was wiping away a tear, so it wasn't quite as powerful a moment as it was on night 1 at the castle, when I really felt her pouring her heart out on stage. Still, I'm very glad they captured this.




Bonus Content

As mentioned, this Shop PBS release of the DVD does NOT have bonus content beyond the concert itself.

As far as the content not on the Shop PBS release of the DVD, I am almost 100% certain there is a behind the scenes that will accompany at least the Blu-Ray release in spring. It's possible there will be more bonus content than a "making of" documentary, but I can't promise that.

I'm kind of in a difficult position because of the surprisingly absent extra content on the DVD. I kind of promoted the Shop PBS DVD thinking the bonus content would be on it. I don't think I ever stated it was, but I assumed it was and I'm pretty sure other people did too.

I don't want to tell people to not get the Shop PBS version, but I was forced to make some emergency posts cautioning people that I don't think this is the full set of content that will be available in spring with the general release. People for whom the PBS special will not be airing until January - March might want to get the DVD anyways, in spite of it not having all the content. I think knowing that this DVD does not have the full set of content, most people that aren't planning to get a separate copy in spring anyways would choose to skip this release wait until spring.

I'm not disappointed I got the DVD from PBS since I wanted to be able to show it to people during the Christmas holidays. I really wish it had the behind the scenes on it though.


Visual

That castle looks really pretty all lit up and the fog, in spite of the fact that it muddied a few of the shots, caused some pretty cool light-scattering, added to the mystical feel of the music, and was a benefit overall.

I still think Songs From the Heart holds a slight edge in terms of being visually spectacular: we got to see a lot of the Powerscourt grounds on the SftH DVD and the Wicklow Mountains in the background looking away from the stage. In Ancient Land, the castle looked incredibly beautiful. There's no doubt about that. But the only time you get to see the rest of the beautiful grounds is a brief flyover before they cut to the concert. You don't get to see the other side of the castle at all during the concert itself (most likely you will see more in the spring release on the behind the scenes).


Technical Note

This has nothing to do with this particular DVD, but I'll only be getting Blu-Ray going forward. I believe most DVDs have 480p video (someone please correct me if I'm wrong), whereas Blu-Ray has 1080p. If you have a Blu-Ray player it does seem to make DVDs look better than if you play them on a regular DVD player. But considering my DVD player is now so bad that it can't make it thorough a single track without skipping repeatedly, it's time for me to finally get Blu-Ray. That's going to be an expensive overhaul (a Blu-Ray player and probably a new speaker system, since the one I have is starting to suck, plus I have to replace all my DVDs with Blu-Ray versions where possible), but it's long overdue and will be well worth it.


Overall

As I mentioned in my previous writeups (on the PBS special and the CD), Ancient Land is the most fun set of Celtic Woman music I've ever heard! The harmony is gorgeous, the arrangements are fantastic and the visuals are breathtaking.

Depending on your specific taste in music, you may enjoy A New Journey even more.

In spite of the pretty significant shock of not having any of the bonus content (aside from the 3 extra songs) on this DVD, this is definitely one of my favourite Celtic Woman DVDs.




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--- SPOILERS ABOVE ---


« Last Edit: December 12, 2018, 09:20:51 PM by CWazyTom » Logged
GlenS
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« Reply #1 on: December 10, 2018, 07:19:34 PM »

My PBS DVD wouldn't play in my Blu ray player had to hook up my plain DVD player for some reason the Blu Ray player kept saying disk error
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celtic4life
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« Reply #2 on: December 10, 2018, 07:28:23 PM »

Ok, I'm the type that loves to look at camera angle details and editing during these live specials. I noticed during opener, "Ancient Land", there were a few editing tricks done at the beginning. If you watch the DVD version they do start on the steps unlike the PBS special where they go straight to the stage. The trick that caught my eye was, if you watch at the beginning it shows them coming down the stairs, Eabha is on the bottom step, Megan is behind her, and Mairead is moving over same as shown on PBS with them coming down stage. Then it switches to Ray on drums, (look in the bottom right corner and you now see the girls coming out of the castle). When we come back to the girls they are back on the top of the steps: Eabha is now on third from top, Megan is on next to top, and Mairead is on top step. So it seems like they used different angles from different parts of the song and put them together at parts I figure they didn't get good angles during the taping.

[I hope everyone can follow that]

Also Ray shot at beginning of "Mnà Na hÈireann" you can see the girls come out of the castle in bottom right corner wearing the opening dresses. So that's another reused camera angle.

Did anyone else see that only choir members with microphones were the 4 guys? Ever since Destiny the choir no longer wear mics. I think on Homecoming as well they didn't.
« Last Edit: December 10, 2018, 07:56:06 PM by celtic4life » Logged
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« Reply #3 on: December 11, 2018, 11:33:40 PM »

celtic4life:  Thanks for the observations!  Yeah, I did notice the difference between the two choirs in my write-up from the live show.  Those four guys (Carl Maguire, Alan McGrath, James Greenan, and Colm Farrell) are part of Celtic Woman.  They are credited as the "Celtic Woman Choir/Dancers".  Some of them (e.g. Carl Maguire) were on previous tours and I expect they will probably be on the Ancient Land tour.  The choir members without microphones are the Johnstown Voices Choir according to the DVD liner notes.  I can't find much info about them.  One of the girls looked a lot like Megan and we though she might be Megan's sister when we saw her walking around before the live shows.

I guess this isn't surprising, but I can say now that being there live, in the front row, is way better than watching a DVD.  When the DVD zooms out to a wide shot, there just aren't enough pixels for you to see the expression on any individual girl's face.  That makes our experience there all the more precious.

I'm disappointed that they didn't show Tara's entire dance routine during Love & Honour.  Tom said it was beautiful, and I didn't appreciate it very much live, so I really wanted to see the whole thing again.  For much of the time she was dancing, the DVD cuts away to other instrumentalists who were playing important parts.

Tracie and Gregg: I hope you already watched the DVD so I'm not spoiling anything, but there's a great shot of Tom's right ear and Gregg on there between songs!

You can see me bobbing my head a lot during Tara's Tunes (from behind).  I must have really liked it!  (I like it a lot today but more because of the album than any memory of the live performance.)

The DVD makes it look like "Be Still" leads directly into "Going Home", almost like they are the same song.  I think it was not like that in the live performance; we probably clapped twice between those two songs, as usual.

The DVD has audible cheers from the audience during Enchanted Way, the second-to-last song.  Was that real?  I thought we only cheered when commanded, but my memory has grown foggy.

Tom, thanks for pointing out Mairéad's small loss of composure immediately after her tribute to Dave Kavanaugh. I totally missed that live, and I'm not sure I would have noticed it without a hint.  But it was captured well on the DVD, and you can actually hear her sighing.

Night 1 vs. night 2 cheat sheet

In case anyone wants to figure out if a given shot is from night 1 (2018-09-13) or night 2 (2018-09-14), here's a little compilation of clues:

  • The air was misty on night 2 and clear on night 1 (according to Tom, I didn't remember that myself).
  • On night 1, there were fewer people, so the empty audience section behind the orchestra was covered with a tarp but you can still see one column of chairs under the tarp.  There was also an empty audience section on the far left, but I think it doesn't show up on the DVD.
  • If you can see the front row on the left side, look for Tom, Gregg, and Tracie on the right end, because they there on night 2 but not night 1.  Tracie's red hair tended to stand out well in the lighting.  If she's not in the front low, look for me on the far left of the front row, with my poofy red hair and green suit with wide shoulder pads; that was my seat on night 1.
  • I was in the front row on the right (third from the left) on night 2, but not on night 1.
  • County Down, Garden of Eden, and Faith's Song were only performed on night 2.  (Thanks for keeping track of that, Tom.)
  • The tribute to Dave Kavanaugh was only on night 1.
« Last Edit: December 12, 2018, 10:31:40 AM by VegasDavid » Logged
CWazyTom
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« Reply #4 on: December 12, 2018, 07:28:57 AM »

celtic4life:  Thanks for the observations!  Yeah, I did notice the difference between the two choirs in my write-up from the live show.  Those four guys (Carl Maguire, Alan McGrath, James Greenan, and Colm Farrell) are part of Celtic Woman.  They are credited as the "Celtic Woman Choir/Dancers".  Some of them (e.g. Carl Maguire) were on previous tours and I expect they will probably be on the Ancient Land tour.  The choir members without microphones are the Johnstown Voices Choir according to the DVD liner notes.  I can't find much info about them.  One of the girls looked a lot like Megan and we though she might be Megan's sister when we saw her walking around before the live shows.

I guess this isn't surprising, but I can say now that being there live, in the front row, is way better than watching a DVD.  When the DVD zooms out to a wide shot, there just aren't enough pixels for you to see the expression on any individual girl's face.  That makes our experience there all the more precious.

I'm disappointed that they didn't show Tara's entire dance routine during Love & Honour.  Tom said it was beautiful, and I didn't appreciate it very much live, so I really wanted to see the whole thing again.  For much of the time she was dancing, the DVD cuts away to other instrumentalists who were playing important parts.

Tracie and Gregg: I hope you already watched the DVD so I'm not spoiling anything, but there's a great shot of Tom's right ear and Gregg on there between songs!

You can see me bobbing my head a lot during Tara's Tunes (from behind).  I must have really liked it!  (I like it a lot today but more because of the album than any memory of the live performance.)

The DVD makes it look like "Be Still" leads directly into "Going Home", almost like they are the same song.  I think it was not like that in the live performance; we probably clapped twice between those two songs, as usual.

The DVD has audible cheers from the audience during Enchanted Way, the second-to-last song.  Was that real?  I thought we only cheered when commanded, but my memory has grown foggy.

Tom, thanks for pointing out Mairéad's small loss of composure immediately after her tribute to Dave Kavanaugh. I totally missed that live, and I'm not sure I would have noticed it without a hint.  But it was captured well on the DVD, and you can actually hear her sighing.

Night 1 vs. night 2 cheat sheet

In case anyone wants to figure out if a given shot is from night 1 (2018-09-13) or night 2 (2018-09-14), here's a little compilation of clues:

  • The air was misty on night 2 and clear on night 1 (according to Tom, I didn't remember that myself).
  • On night 1, there were fewer people, so the empty audience section behind the orchestra was covered with a tarp but you can still see one column of chairs under the tarp.  There was also an empty audience section on the far left, but I think it doesn't show up on the DVD.
  • If you can see the front row on the left side, look for Tom, Gregg, and Tracie on the right end, because they there on night 2 but not night 1.  Tracie's red hair tended to stand out well in the lighting.  If she's not in the front low, look for me on the far left of the front row, with my poofy red hair and green suit with wide shoulder pads; that was my seat on night 1.
  • I was in the front row on the right (third from the left) on night 2, but not on night 1.
  • County Down, Garden of Eden, and Faith's Song were only performed on night 2.  (Thanks for keeping track of that, Tom.)
  • The tribute to Dave Kavanaugh was only on night 1.

Yeah, the camera just missed me.  ::)

If I had been leaning back instead of slouching I would have been in the shot. Of course if I had been leaning back, there's no guarantee they would have used the shot I suppose.

Yes, I know what you mean about the wide shots being to low in resolution to see the girls' faces. All my DVDs look better on Blu-ray and my parents' place, due to upscaling. They don't look very good on my DVD player.

There was a bit of a tribute before The Parting Glass on night #2 as well, but the one on night #1 was more raw and emotional. Night #2 was more abbreviated and rehearsed.
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CWazyTom
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« Reply #5 on: December 12, 2018, 07:33:08 AM »

My PBS DVD wouldn't play in my Blu ray player had to hook up my plain DVD player for some reason the Blu Ray player kept saying disk error

I had that happen with Mairead Nesbitt's "Tracks and Paths" DVD on a Blu-ray player.

Hopefully it's not a common issue with this DVD on Blu-ray players, otherwise it's not going to work while I'm home for Christmas.

One way or another, I'm getting the Blu-ray in January / spring. I'll have at least 5 copies of the Ancient Land concert special after all the ones from PBS M+G ticket bundles ship.  ;D
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« Reply #6 on: December 12, 2018, 11:51:55 PM »

Our DVD arrived today and we watched tonight. Ours worked fine in our bluray player. I thought it came out very visually stunning, especially the close-ups! I loved getting to watch County Down, Garden of Eden and Faith's Song again. All incredible songs! So glad every song from the filming made it into the dvd! I'll most definitely get the bluray when it releases and am excited to see all the extra features they're putting together!

I waited until after watching the DVD to read this thread because I wanted to be surprised as to whether our faces made it onto the DVD or not. I'm thrilled that they did! They caught me with a huge grin, which I love! They also got an extreme close up of Gregg after County Down. And I was really surprised to find that Gregg's face could actually already be seen in a crowd shot the PBS airing. Neither of us noticed that until watching the DVD tonight. Then we went back to our DVR recording and sure enough, there he was. Lol, no idea how we both kept missing that!

I love Ancient Land so much! Getting to be there for the filming was the most incredible experience! Watching it keeps bringing back the memories of being there and thoughts of the things that aren't shown. Things like that they talked a lot more to the audience and did more song introductions then what made the DVD. And that the editing gives somewhat of a different feel to some of it. For example, Tara's beautiful dance in Love and Honour that David mentioned that is somewhat on the DVD but not fully. And the way the dancers danced a circle around Tara in The Enchanted Way that isn't really shown because they're zoomed in on Tara there. David, yes the crowd was cheering in the middle of that song live. And the very beginning of the concert to me felt so much more dramatic live. When they each took the stage one by one, it was so exciting. The way they edited it seems like they all came on stage at once and yes there is some interesting editing there like celtic4life mentioned. I just thought it was more powerful live with them each taking the stage one at a time rather than the zoom in to the castle for a big chunk of the song on the dvd.

Anyway, it's late on a work night. Ancient Land is incredible!
« Last Edit: December 13, 2018, 10:51:12 PM by Tracie » Logged
prideslaw
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« Reply #7 on: December 16, 2018, 02:23:07 PM »

Check out the pre concert photos I took on day 1 (posted in September). Some behind the scenes and lots of the rest of Johnstown Castle grounds.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1FkzZVI6Q_89tiTQTlITDufnSP7FuygyX

I left out the ones of us being interviewed by the guy who said he was doing the "behind the scenes" portion for the DVD. So hopefully it will be on a future release - probably Blu-ray.
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« Reply #8 on: December 16, 2018, 03:09:58 PM »

Great pictures prideslaw! Johnstown Castle was so beautiful. I loved exploring the grounds with Gregg and Tom on day 2! I see myself in one of your pictures before the show!
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CWazyTom
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« Reply #9 on: September 14, 2019, 01:39:17 PM »

I watched the Ancient Land Blu-ray yesterday in celebration of the Ancient Land DVD recording Anniversary!

A thunderstorm rolled in during the second half of the show and I could lightning outside. It was like being at Johnstown Castle and Red Rocks at the same time.  ;D

I've had a year to let this amazing concert special soak in and I think this might be my favourite. The Ancient Land album is already my all-time #1. A New Journey and Songs from the Heart had great special features and Ancient Land just had the amazing concert itself. But all the songs in Ancient Land were soooo good and fun to listen to. I think excluding special features, this is my favourite DVD. With special features, A New Journey has a slight edge, but Ancient Land is right on its heels!
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