Celtic Woman have just posted the Ancient Land album tracklist on facebook:

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10156673979707838&id=117800522837

It is nearly identical to the Johnstown Castle filming, but there are a few songs on the CD that aren't on the DVD and vice versa.

On the CD but not the DVD:
County Down
Faith's Song
Garden of Eden

On the DVD but not the CD:
Danny Boy
Amazing Grace
Over the Rainbow
Siul A Run
The Parting Glass

The new songs are all amazing, I loved every single one!!

*Edit - County Down, Faith's Song and Garden of Eden were all performed on night two of the DVD filming!

Mairead and Ronan both posted on instagram a little clip of a recording sung by Mairead and said "dying for you all to hear this later in the year." Anybody think this is a teaser of a new solo album coming? I really hope so!

I saw Homecoming twice over the past few days and had the most amazing time!  This will probably get long, thanks in advance for reading!

Grand Forks, ND - June 7, 2018

If I kept a diary, the entry for today would begin "Dear Diary, today was the second most incredible day of my life, exceeded only by my wedding day."

My husband Gregg and I went to the Grand Forks show, which was our sixth Celtic Woman show and our first official meet and greet.  We drove there from Minneapolis the day before the show.  The venue was an auditorium on the University of North Dakota campus.  When we arrived we stopped there and found the stage door and walked around campus a bit.  We found that right across from the auditorium was a nice walking path along a stream and there were fountains.  We thought it looked like a place with great potential to meet them before the show, particularly Tara who we know loves going out on walks by the water from her instagram posts.

The excitement of show day started right after we woke up. Gregg went out to our vehicle to grab something and saw their tour buses in the hotel parking lot. Holy moly, they were in the same hotel as us! We decided to hang around the lobby for the morning with hope of meeting them. Gregg sat in the lobby while I was taking a shower and when I came down he said he had seen Caitriona.  She was on a phone call so he didn't get to talk to her, but it was so cool just to see her right there.  We hung out in the lobby together for quite awhile and nothing happened.  Based on an Instagram post, it seemed that they had arrived around 3am, so we figured they were probably all sleeping.  After a couple of hours Gregg decided to go back to our room and take a nap and I stayed in lobby a bit longer and I also walked around outside a few times.  Around noon I figured we should go have some lunch, but before going back to the room I stepped outside once more and as I was going around a corner of the hotel, there was Carl! I told him I was so excited for the show and he said "oh brilliant!"  He asked if I had seen the show yet this year and when I said tonight would be the first one, he said it's an incredible show and I'm gonna love it and he thinks it's the best show they've ever done.  I said I had seen the show last year three times and it was wonderful and I couldn't wait for tonight.  He said he'd see me at the door later.  He was super nice. 

I went back inside planning to go up to the room and tell Gregg about this.  As I walked past the fitness room, I did a double take and my jaw dropped - Mairead was in there running on the treadmill!  I'm not entirely sure how I had the nerve to do this, but I walked in there.  The way the room was set up, her back was to the door so she didn't see me walk in.  I walked over to one side and when she noticed I was there she took out her earbuds.  I told her I'm sorry for interrupting but I was just walking past and had to tell her how much I love her music and I'm so excited for the show and I'm such a huge fan.  She smiled and said thank you so much (at least I think that's what she said - in all the excitement my mind blanked on her exact words - funny the way that happens) and then I said I'll see you later and I left.  I didn't want to disrupt her for too long while she was running and I felt slightly bad about interrupting her workout in the first place, but then I thought she's cool it's fine.  I went to the room and told Gregg I had just talked to both Mairead and Carl.  He was so jealous, especially that I had talked to Mairead!  We headed out to go to lunch and she was still on the treadmill so Gregg saw her through the door, but he didn't go in to talk to her.  As we walked out the lady at the front desk, who had seen us hanging around all morning, asked if we were having a good day and I said it's been great!  Then I asked her if she knew that they had music royalty staying there.  She looked surprised and asked how I knew that and I said their buses are outside and I've already talked to two of them today.  She said she had talked to a couple of them also (I don't know who) and it was so much fun that they were there.

After lunch, we went back to campus and sat down by the fountains.  We sat there for maybe half an hour or so and then walking up the path comes Tara!  We walked up to her and said we're such huge fans and we love her music so much.  She said lovely to meet you and we shook hands and introduced ourselves.  She asked if we were going to the show tonight and we said we were, with meet and greet, and that we had driven up from Minneapolis.  She asked how far away that was and we said it was about a five hour drive.  She looked surprised and said oh is this the closest we're getting to you this year?  We said yes and she said she would think when they do more than 90 shows that they'd get closer than that.  We said we didn't mind and told her about all the locations we've seen their shows previously, including trips to Colorado and Illinois.  Gregg was also telling her the cities in Minnesota that we've seen them and when he said Rochester, she asked if that was at Easter last year and I said it was June actually because it had been a year since we've seen them.  Afterwards I thought she was probably thinking of Rochester NY because that was probably around Easter.  Gregg told me later that I shouldn't have corrected her, but I was like it's fine she was so nice.  Continuing our conversation with her, we said we had seen Voices of Angels three times and loved it so much and we were so excited for tonight's show.  We talked about how lovely the campus was and she said she always likes going out on walks and finding the water.  We said we had walked around campus the night before as well and she said oh you made a trip out of it?  We said yes and said actually we're at the same hotel as you.  She said oh did you see the buses and we said yes and I said I've also talked to Mairead and Carl already today and this is so much fun for us.  Then we asked if we could take a picture with her and she said we could.  While Gregg was pulling up the camera on his phone, I told her it is such a joy watching her perform and she's so incredible.  She looked genuinely touched when I said that.  We took the picture with her and then said thank you so much, you're so awesome!  Wow, she spent at least a few minutes talking to us and she's an absolute sweetheart!  And we thought wow, our idea that it was very possible for us to meet at least Tara out by that stream was right!  If anybody saw her Instagram story that afternoon where she said she was in North Dakota and had found the water, that was just a few minutes after we met her.

We sat there a little bit longer and then went back to the hotel to get ready for evening.  We arrived and checked in for meet and greet and the guy from PBS was very friendly and chatty with us.  We showed him our picture with Tara from earlier.  As it was getting close to time to go in, he said there were several people missing still and they'd had a few cancellations.  What!?  C'mon people, don't you know how special it is to meet them!?  As we walked back to the meet and greet room, Carl walked by and I waved to him and said hi again and he said hey!  When we were brought into the room and told to line up, Gregg and I were first in line.  I'd guess there were about 20 people.  It was a big open room with lots of light and a curtain lining the wall where we would take the pictures.  The tour manager came in and said there's not a lot of time, this is just a photo op and to be snappy.  Although he said that, I was very pleasantly surprised that we were actually not rushed at all!  We said we brought a gift for them and held it out to hand to him and he said we could give it to them.  When the ladies walked in the room, they were looking at the line of people.  When Tara saw us she waved.  Mairead looked at me with recognition that we had met earlier.  I gave my phone to Aimee and realized afterwards that I completely forgot to ask her to take candids while we were talking to them.  Oops, I'll have to remember that next time!  When we walked up to them, Mairead said oh hi! and told the others she had met me earlier and I said yeah I totally interrupted your workout! She said she was listening to some tunes and hadn't realized that somebody had walked in the room and then looked over and saw me standing there and went "oh hello!"  It was so adorable the way she was describing our meeting and confirmed for me that she didn't mind that I had interrupted her workout.  Then Mairead held out her hand for a handshake and I shook her hand and also gave her a hug.  As I was hugging Eabha next, I said we had seen the buses outside of the hotel and were so excited that they were there.  Tara was next and then Susan.  By the time I had reached Tara and Susan I was so overwhelmed with excitement that all I was getting out was a "hi" as I hugged each of them.  Gregg hugged each of them as well and then the picture was taken.  When Aimee handed the phone back, we turned back to the ladies and I said thank you so much, we love you all.  They give such wonderful, warm smiles!  Gregg left the gift bag with Aimee and then the tour manager told us how to get to our seats from there and we left.  As we walked out, Gregg said right away that we're now going to need a meet and greet on every tour.  I completely agree, what an amazing experience!  Then Gregg looked on Instagram shortly before the show started and saw Eabha's story where she said lovely gift from the lovely Tracie and put a picture of her holding the glass blown flower.  I was completely blown away by how sweet that was.  First of all I didn't realize they would open the gift immediately and I was also so touched that she had put it on Instagram.  Could these ladies be any sweeter to their fans!?  They're so incredible!

We had front row seats for the first time of any concert we had attended.  It was so amazing being right up next to the stage! The entire show was so incredibly beautiful.  We loved every minute of it and every new song.  I very much hope for a new album this year with all the new songs on it.  Every single moment was incredible as always.  Homeland is so catchy and is a great show opener, Ballroom of Romance is so much fun and also so catchy, The Long Journey Home had such beautiful lyrics and I loved Going Home so much it had me in tears.  Eabha's May It Be was strikingly beautiful and her Wild Mountainside was wonderful as well, Tara's Tunes was incredibly fun, Susan absolutely nailed From A Distance, and Mairead's Nella Fantasia was a jaw-dropping stunner.  The only downside of the night was that they had removed My Heart Will Go On, Walk Beside Me and Teir Abhaile Riu, all of which I had seen in earlier setlists.  I wonder why?  I would have loved to hear those songs as well and it's a bit of a bummer that audiences earlier in the tour got to have a longer show than we got.  We loved everything they did perform though of course.  The audience was only so-so and I think only about 2/3 of the seats were filled.  They did get louder as the show went on, especially in the second act.  Gregg and I were cheering very loudly for every song and we gave them multiple standing ovations.  The ladies were very aware of us in the audience and smiled and nodded directly at us several times throughout the night.  It was so much fun interacting with them that way during the show.  The whole audience gave a very long standing ovation after The Kesh Inn and the ladies looked truly touched by that.  Another very long standing ovation after The Parting Glass and then the show was over.  It seemed to just fly by, I could have sat there and listened to them for hours.  I only took a few pictures during the show in between songs while they were talking.  That was my plan and I stuck to it because I wanted to be fully immersed in the beautiful music and didn't want to distract myself by taking pictures during songs.  The pictures I do have are on my public Instagram account, feel free to take a look - username tracie_dorn.

Afterwards, we went out to the stage door.  Every single member of the band and choir walked by and we told each of them that we loved the show and they all thanked us.  I also told Carl that he's awesome.  I think it was Tommy that said the ladies would be out shortly.  Of the ladies, Tara came out first.  We said the show was incredible and we loved it so much (we said that to each of the ladies).  She thanked us and then also said thank you for being such a presence in the audience.  Awwwwww, so sweet!  Her saying that is one of my favorite moments from the entire day.  Then she said she had her rose in her bag and she hoped the others didn't forget to grab the sweets - we had also put some candy in the gift bag, including Mikey Ikeys!    Susan and Anto came out next and Susan said thank you so much and Anto said we'll see you again soon.  Mairead and Eabha came out last of everybody.  Mairead was carrying our gift bag and they said thank you for the gift and thank you for the lovely letter I had written and that they loved it. 

What an amazing day!!  I was on Celtic Woman cloud nine and really haven't come down from it yet four days later!


Appleton, WI - June 9, 2018

This one will be a much shorter write-up! I went to the Appleton show with my mom, sister and sister-in-law.  Only my mom had seen them previously.  My sister and sister-in-law both very much enjoyed the show.  My mom loved it too of course.  We had seats in the third tier of the balcony looking directly at the middle of the stage, which actually weren't bad at all.  There was a great view of the stage from up there.  I found that I really enjoyed seeing the show from a completely different perspective than seeing it from front row, particularly seeing the choreography of Ballroom of Romance from above.  I have told Gregg that I would really like to do this on each tour now if we're so lucky as to get two nearby shows - one with meet & greet/front row and another with center balcony.  He's not convinced yet, but it really is a different experience having such different seats and I thought it was an excellent way to see the show twice.  The audience was so much louder and showing so much more appreciation than the Grand Forks audience which was a lot of fun.  I don't think it was quite up to the level of the insanely awesome Minneapolis crowd last year, but it was excellent.  I hadn't told any of the ladies that I would be seeing the show again in Appleton.  I thought if I did get another chance to meet them, I would surprise them.  It didn't work out unfortunately.  I did find the buses after the show, but I think I went around the wrong side of the theater.  The buses were down a ramp in kind of a pit and I was looking at it thinking I shouldn't just walk down in there.  I also didn't see anybody out there and didn't see a stage door.  I think I must have chosen the wrong side of the theater to walk around.  I would've walked all the way around searching more if it was just me, but it was hard on my mom to walk that much, so we just headed home.  That's quite alright though, I had all the amazing meeting experiences in Grand Forks!

Thanks for reading my super long write-up!  Gregg and I had such a blast and now we've got all fingers and toes crossed that the Christmas tour comes to a location we can get to!  Love them all so much!  Oh and Gregg has already made a list of all their Florida locations from this tour and says next spring we should take a Florida vacation and follow them around for a week.  I'm in! 
       

I got to shop for gifts for the ladies this weekend! There was a big spring craft fair that thankfully was being held only a few blocks from my house, because we were buried in snow this weekend. I found these gorgeous glass blown flowers and got them each one in a different color. Tara's is pink of course! I also have a purple, red and blue. Can't wait to bring those to the meet and greet!

Continuing on with my tour experiences, here are my Voices of Angels stories and my quest to meet my favorite ladies.  A few months after my husband and I saw the Destiny tour, Celtic Woman announced the Voices of Angels tour.  We loved Destiny so much that we were definitely going to attend Voices of Angels.  There were going to be two shows in Minnesota, one in Rochester and one in Minneapolis.  We chose the Minneapolis show and bought our tickets the day they went on pre-sale.  A week after we saw and loved the Home For Christmas show, it was Christmas Eve and my husband surprised me with tickets to the Rochester show.  Then a month or so later my aunt and uncle contacted us.  They live in Colorado, are fans of Celtic Woman and knew that we are fans as well.  They invited us to go visit them when Celtic Woman would be there.  We loved the idea of a little vacation to Colorado, so we would then be seeing Voices of Angels three times within seven days.  We were so excited about our Celtic Woman week!  We were also very much wanting to meet the ladies, but couldn't find any meet and greet passes in our online searches of PBS stations.  I think the meet and greets must have sold out before we started looking for them.  We decided we would attempt to meet them at the bus, as we had seen pictures of other fans that had successfully done it.  So our Celtic Woman week began!

Pueblo, Colorado - June 7, 2017

The first Voices of Angels show we saw was in Colorado.  My aunt and uncle invited us to the Pueblo show since it was fairly close to where they live.  It was after we had those tickets and just in the week or so leading up to the show that we started to realize how big of a deal Red Rocks was and how amazing that show would be.  Had we known more about it in advance we probably would have picked that show instead of Pueblo.  Oh well, I figure the next time they have a show at Red Rocks, we can go visit my aunt and uncle again!

When we arrived at the show, we immediately saw Glenn at the merchandise table selling programs.  We walked up to him, told him that he's awesome and that we love the videos he and Ronan had been making.  My aunt joined us and told him that we had come from Minnesota and that we would be seeing both Minnesota shows as well.  Glenn said that was so cool.  He was really nice.  We didn't take a picture with him (I think I was a little too star-struck to ask), but after we got to our seats he was then walking around the theater selling the programs and I tried to sneak a picture of him.  He saw what I was doing and struck a pose for me.  My phone camera isn't great and it came out blurry, but it was still fun!  One thing I was thinking right away was that if I was feeling star-struck from meeting Glenn, I had no idea how I would feel if I succeeded in my quest to meet my favorite ladies.  Would I even be able to speak to them or would I just be overwhelmed with excitement?

We were sitting on the main floor about 20 or so rows back from the stage in the center.  We had brought four sets of binoculars so we could each get good up close looks at them.  Honestly, before the show even started I was ready to declare it to be the best show I had ever seen in my life.  I was so hyped up about it and yet they somehow managed to exceed my incredibly high expectations.  Every moment of the show was absolutely amazing.  I loved everything about it - I can't even pick out favorite songs from the show because I loved all of them.  It was fun having those binoculars to see up close details of all the dresses and of the singing.  My husband said he thought that Mairead was looking directly at him and smiling at one point when he was using the binoculars.  I said it's quite possible she could see that somebody was holding up binoculars!  He's quite tall too so he would stand out in a crowd.  The little theater we were in had amazing acoustics.  I thought it was a good audience too.  Every song got good applause and the final three songs each got standing ovations. 

We left with all four of us thinking the show was incredible.  My husband and I were telling our relatives that we wanted to meet the ladies.  My uncle drove around the back of the theater and we found where the buses were.  But then he just kept driving and headed home.  0-1 on our quest to meet the ladies.

Rochester, Minnesota - June 11, 2017

For the show in Rochester, we had seats in the third row all the way to the left.  This show was in an arena, so we were wondering what it would be like in comparison to the theater with the amazing acoustics.  We got there early and we saw a group of people with meet and greet passes and were bummed that we hadn't been able to get them.  When the doors opened, it was Glenn selling programs once again.  We walked by him and waved and asked if he remembered us from Colorado and he said that he did and welcomed us back to the show.  Ronan was also out in the lobby that night, but he was on the phone so we didn't want to disrupt him.  We got inside and were thrilled to be so close to the stage.  Although we were in the third row, being all the way to one side we actually had nobody directly in front of us because the first two rows had the seats in the center.  It was a pretty decent view of the stage too.  There was a curtain to the side that led backstage and a couple of times before the show started we could see people peeking out from behind the curtain, checking out the crowd.  We couldn't tell who it was though. 
   
When the show started we were very pleased that the sound in the arena was great.  While not quite as good as the acoustics in the theater, everything still sounded wonderful.  The entire show was amazing once again.  The biggest difference between the two shows was that the crowd in Rochester was really boring at first.  They were so quiet for the first few songs that I felt bad for the performers.  They changed up the order of the songs to put Across The World earlier in the set and I'm sure that was an effort to get the crowd into the show.  It worked too, it got people clapping along.  The crowd really got going once they got to The Kesh Inn and Nil Sen La.  By the end of act one, the crowd was really into it and stayed really into it all the way through act two, giving standing ovations to each of the final three songs.  I'm glad the crowd wasn't dull the entire time.  My husband and I both said afterwards that we thought Tara had looked directly at us and smiled a couple of times, which was awesome.

After the show, we walked around the arena and found the buses at the back.  The buses were very close to the building and we didn't see any other fans (or anybody at all) out there.  We weren't really sure how to go about attempting to meet them and weren't sure if we were allowed to walk right up to the buses.  We hung back and just kept an eye on the building to see if we would catch the moment that they walked out, but in the end the buses drove away without us ever seeing a single person climb on.  We waved at the buses as they drove past.  0-2 on our quest to meet the ladies.  One chance left.

Minneapolis, Minnesota - June 13, 2017

The show in Minneapolis was in a theater and we went with my mom.  The acoustics in this theater were amazing, just like the first theater.  When we entered the lobby, it was Alan and Carl selling programs.  We walked up to them and I told them that we had already seen the show twice and that we loved their dancing.  They thanked us and said they hoped we enjoyed the show again.  We had fourth row seats all the way to the right.  It was great being so close to the stage again and seeing everything from the opposite side.  Once again, the show was incredible.  It was my mom's first time seeing them and she loved it too.  The big difference at the Minneapolis show from the other two was that the crowd was spectacular.  From the moment the ladies came on stage to start singing Mo Ghile Mear the crowd was roaring, and that roaring never stopped the entire night.  It was so much fun to be a part of.  We could really see how much the ladies were loving it.  They kept looking at each other with huge smiles on their faces, they were adding extra yips into the songs and they even commented on it.  Before The Parting Glass, Eabha said that the crowd was amazing, which was the same thing she'd said at each of the three shows, but then she added onto it that they had been on the road for a long time and that this was one of the most amazing nights they'd had.  It was really incredible.  During one of the standing ovations, Mairead locked eyes with me and gave me a huge smile.  That was so awesome.  The Minneapolis show is the best show I have ever been to and it was the amazing crowd that really put it over the top.  The ladies, band and choir gave us top notch performances at each of the three shows, but being in a roaring crowd added that extra level of awesomeness to it.  The Celtic Woman Instagram account posted shortly after the show had ended, "what a night we just had in Minneapolis!"  What a night indeed.  When the Homecoming tour was announced, I was shocked to see that Minneapolis wasn't on the list.  I thought for sure they would come back after how amazing that night was.  Now I'm hoping for this year's Christmas tour!

After the show, it was our last chance to meet them on the Voices of Angels tour.  We walked around one side of the building and didn't find the buses.  My husband didn't want to be out in the city in the dark so we were giving up and heading to our car.  When we crossed the street, I looked back and saw a gap at the other side of the theater, so we walked down to see what was in that gap.  There were the buses and as we were standing across the street, we saw Tara climb on!  We quickly made our way across the street to see if we could meet any of the others.  We again weren't really sure what to do, but my mom just walked right up to a security guard and asked if the ladies were all on the bus already and if not, could we meet them.  The guard said they weren't all on the bus yet and yes, we could wait for them.  Oh my goodness, the excitement!  He pointed us around a corner to wait and we then saw that there was a group of fans already there.  They had gotten pictures with Tara, so she had stopped.  We just missed meeting her!  As we anxiously waited, we noticed that there was a bar patio nearby and that the band was hanging out there.  I'm not really sure how long we waited out there.  Maybe 10-15 minutes?  During that time, Ray got up and walked by us and said something, although I didn't catch a word of what he said.  Caitriona got up and walked by and the group of fans cheered for her, to which she gave us a huge smile.  Susan walked by and gave us a smile and a wave, but continued on to the bus without stopping.  At that point we were wondering if we would actually get to meet any of them or if we were only going to see them walk by.
 
And then, the big moment finally arrived.  Eabha and Mairead came out of the theater and were walking directly towards the fans, which resulted in the group erupting into applause.  We were so incredibly excited, they were going to stop and meet us!  As they walked up, the first thing Mairead said was that they loved us as an audience.  Then they started making their way around the group.  Eabha came over to us first and my mom had her autograph her program.  Mairead started to walk over to us too and was asking my mom if she wanted her to sign the program too, but then she got side-tracked by somebody else.  She was taking pictures with other fans and then what I thought was so great was that she made sure to go back to my mom, asking if she should sign the program.  Then I asked if I could have my picture taken with them.  As we were getting set for the picture, I told them that this was the greatest show I had ever seen, to which Mairead replied "awwwww, thank you!"  It was so thrilling to stand in between Eabha & Mairead, two of my four favorite performers in the world, and to put my arms around them and have them put their arms around me.  I absolutely love the picture I got with them.  It makes me so happy every time I look at it.  They were both so incredibly sweet and kind.  The security guards kept trying to get them to go to the bus, but they wouldn't leave until everybody out there had the pictures and autographs that they wanted.  I thought that was so great of them to make sure to get to everybody.  As we were leaving, I realized that I should have told them thank you for their wonderful music providing me with much needed stress relief, but while everything was happening the words just didn't come to me.  I was pretty overwhelmed.  I'm glad I at least said the one thing to them.  My mom said that while they were each signing the program, she told them she was giving the program to me because I was such a huge fan and that this was the 5th time I had seen them in concert.  I'm really glad my mom talked to them a bit since I was too overwhelmed to say much.  The whole experience was incredible, especially with it coming right after the most amazing show with the most amazing crowd.  What a night!

A couple of days later I private messaged them a thank you, saying how much I enjoyed meeting them and telling them that what I missed saying was a thank you for their music relieving my stress.  I wasn't really expecting a response back, I just wanted them to know how much I appreciated them.  Eabha sent me a very sweet response back and said she was happy that their music could bring me peace.  Awwww.

So that's my Voices of Angels tour experience.  Thanks for reading my stories, these have been really fun to write up!  I'm so excited to see Homecoming in June and to have my first meet and greet!  I've got a little less than three months to figure out what to wear and what to say to them.  Eek!! 

I really enjoy going to concerts! What shows have you all been to? I've seen:

Celtic Woman - 5x
Tonic Sol Fa - 4x(?)
Billy Joel - 3x
Weird Al - 2x and going again in a couple of weeks
Styx
Foreigner
Journey
Elton John
Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons
Trans-Siberian Orchestra
Sugar Ray

From my teenage years when boy bands were all the rage:
Nsync
Backstreet Boys
Spice Girls - first ever concert attended

Other than Celtic Woman, my favorite shows have been Billy Joel and Weird Al. They both are incredible live! Tonic Sol Fa is an acapella group from Minnesota and they do shows here in MN a lot. They are very good and put on a very fun show. I think their show will be a date night with the hubby tomorrow night!

To continue on with my tour experience stories, the 2nd time I saw Celtic Woman live was on the Home For Christmas tour in December 2016.  This show has some back story from the months leading up to it, which is the story of how Celtic Woman touched my heart and why I love them so much.  This is a few months after I had seen the Destiny tour. 

This was a very rough time of my life, caused by my job.  I was in a position where I was the only person handling that specific work load, which kept steadily increasing.  I had the worst supervisor I have ever had, who either couldn't or wouldn't understand that the increase in work load had made it so that it should have been two people instead of just me.  I was under constant pressure to have every single thing done.  It was much more than a single person could ever do in a work day.  Taking vacation or even getting sick was impossible.  The company kept growing, the work load kept increasing, and my stress was growing worse and worse by the day.  I was so mentally exhausted that on nights and weekends the only thing I could manage to do was collapse onto the couch.  I went a few months straight without seeing any of my friends because I couldn't handle doing anything other than laying on the couch when I wasn't working.  Depression was setting in.  The level of exhaustion was such that I didn't have the energy to search for a different job and I couldn't quit because I needed the pay check, so I was trapped.

Celtic Woman was my shining light during that horrible time.  It happened by a very fortunate accident.  My office was under construction for an expansion.  That expansion was happening very close to my work space, so the construction noise was very loud.  In an effort to drown out the noise, I started listening to music while working, which is a very common thing for many people, but it just wasn't something I had been doing.  Celtic Woman was of course my music of choice as my favorite artists.  That's when I made the amazing magical discovery that listening to Celtic Woman took my stress away.  It was incredible, almost unreal.  Each day when I turned the music on, I could actually feel myself calming down.  Celtic Woman made the job bearable.  It was them specifically too - anytime I switched my ipod to a different artist, I would find myself craving the beautiful music from my favorite ladies.  Listening to them while working felt so good it became like a drug.  My need to hear their music was so strong.  It's hard to describe.  I know for a fact that there are several days that I would have walked out and quit if I didn't have their music to soothe me.  Quitting would have put me and my husband in a very rough financial situation, so it really wasn't an option.  Celtic Woman saved me and pulled me through.  Thankfully, I no longer work in that position or under that supervisor.  I'm in a good position now.  I still listen to my favorite ladies while I'm working, but now it's only because I love the music so much, not because I need it.

A couple of things happened during this time period.  One was that Voices of Angels was released.  I don't think there's any way I could ever fully explain how much that album means to me because it came out right during the time that I desperately needed it.  I love that album so much, it's so incredibly beautiful.  The introduction to Tara - oh my goodness, I fell in love with her the moment I first heard her play on that album.  I also had never previously heard Mairead's full vocal range the way it's showcased on VoA - holy smokes chica!  Susan and Eabha, absolutely incredible.  The amazing harmonies.  Love Voices of Angels!

The other thing that happened was that the Home For Christmas tour was approaching.  The tour wasn't coming anywhere near me.  I live in the suburbs of Minneapolis and the closest they were getting was in the suburbs of Chicago, about a 7 hour drive.  I wanted to see the wonderful ladies so badly, it was actually more than a want.  It was something I needed for my own mental sanity.  I thankfully have a wonderful husband who was completely on board and we bought our tickets and planned out our weekend getaway.  In the weeks leading up to the show, work was still awful, but I was so incredibly excited for the show.  We ended up needing to drive down a day earlier than planned due to a snow storm coming in.  The snow storm made the drive about 10 hours, during which we listened to every Celtic Woman album in order, singing along the entire time.

The night of the show finally arrived and it was everything I dreamed of and more.  They somehow managed to exceed my extremely high expectations.  The music was so incredibly beautiful.  I was thrilled that they performed about half of Voices of Angels along with the Christmas music.  The orchestra was fantastic.  This was my first time seeing Tara live and she was so amazing.  Eabha's Silent Night was gorgeous.  Susan's The Christmas Song was gorgeous.  Mairead's Ave Maria & We Three Kings were both jaw-droppers.  And we were sitting up in the balcony and Anto came out right next to us playing his bagpipes.  When they sang You Raise Me Up I started crying thinking about how they were the ones raising me up.  It was an incredible, magical evening that I so desperately needed.  I loved every single moment of it.  It was perfect.

Thanks for reading my book, sorry it got so long!  The stories of my tour experiences will continue with Voices of Angels!

Just for fun, what are your 3 favorite songs from each Celtic Woman album? I was going to say 1, but for a few of the albums it's too hard to pick a clear favorite and too hard to even get it down to 3. So here are my top 3 from each, in no particular order. I'm not listing compilation albums, but go for it if you want to!

Celtic Woman:
     The Soft Goodbye
     Send Me a Song
     Orinoco Flow

A New Journey:
     Caledonia
     The Sky and the Dawn and the Sun
     At the Ceili

Songs from the Heart:
     Fields of Gold
     Isle of Hope, Isle of Tears
     Nil Sen La

Believe:
     Teir Abhaile Riu
     Awakening
     Songs from the Heart

Emerald:
     Dulaman
     The Voice
     The Parting Glass

Destiny:
     Westering Home
     Bean Phaidin
     Tir Na Nog

Voices of Angels:
     Mo Ghile Mear
     Time to Say Goodbye
     Across the World

Homecoming:
     For the Love of a Princess
     Sean Nos songs (being lazy and not looking up the spelling!)
     Dulaman

Ancient Land:
     Going Home
     Follow Me
     Moorlough Shore

A Christmas Celebration:
     The Christmas Song
     White Christmas
     Silent Night

Home for Christmas:
     I'll Be Home for Christmas
     Winter Wonderland
     Auld Lang Syne

I do have a #1 favorite Celtic Woman song and it is......Westering Home. Everything about it is just perfect to me and I love that I've seen it performed live 4 times!

*Edit to this part too - Going Home has overtaken Westering Home as my favorite song!