My Home For Christmas tour experience - December 2016

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!

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!

This is one of the reasons I love the forums. So often I feel alone in this world, in my struggles and joys. This is a great place for sharing our love of this wonderful group and the ways in which they've touched our lives. I'll port my Homecoming tour post from the other forum over here shortly.

Setting the Stage

It had been about 9 months since my very first live Celtic Woman experience. It had been an up and down year that included my first Meet and Greet with any performer: Chloë Agnew. <3  Powered by the immense joy and of Celtic Woman: Destiny, Chloë, and all the great things that surrounded them (including the forums and the new friends I made online), it had been my happiest year overall in a very long time.

That said, I was once again exhausted from work and the various other challenges of life. I was getting pretty desperate to meet Celtic Woman, especially Tara, who had been soooo kind to me on social media.

Here's the story I originally posted (with some minor tweaking) once I returned home from the show.


Adapted from my original post on December 15, 2016

On December 13th, 2016, I saw the Home for Christmas tour live at the Dow Event Center in Saginaw, Michigan.

My memory is poor to begin with and I was pretty overwhelmed by the whole show, so instead of posting a formal review song by song, I'll give an overall impression and some notes about some special things that stood out. This will be more a story than a formal review.

Quest to Meet the Girls

My plan was to try to meet the girls, but I wasn't going in with high expectations about that because I knew it was a long shot, especially with it being so cold outside. (Edit: It was about 10 F before the wind-chill, I think).

There were a couple of spots I thought they might go if they ventured out, but none of those panned out. I'm pretty sure they stayed at the venue as it was not pleasant outdoors (cold to begin with and brutal windchill) ... as well most over the sidewalks were  poorly shoveled (mostly un-shoveled). Walking through almost a foot of snow in certain places in dress shoes wasn't particularly pleasant. After close to a couple of hours of walking around the venue and around the river (the frozen Saginaw river was actually quite pretty), I had to call it quits and go check in at the hotel and warm up.

I did see the tour buses behind the venue, but they were really close to the back of the building. I hung around briefly after the show, but ultimately decided that trying to talk to them wasn't practical this time. To get close enough to be able to stop the girls between the stage door and the bus, I would have had to pretty much get right up to the bus and there wasn't any other fans hanging around there waiting for them that I could see. But more importantly, it was really cold and I decided it would be inappropriate for me to force the ladies to stop in the cold. As badly as I wanted to meet them, I wasn't willing to risk their health / voices.

I wasn't really holding out much hope to meet the girls outside the venue this time, so I wasn't too disappointed relative to my expectations.

What was disappointing is that once I got into the theater for the show, I saw a group of people with Meet and Greet stickers on (and someone who I assume was the PBS rep). Well...that was a bit of a surprise. I thought I had a pretty good look for Meet and Greets for this show, but I guess I either missed it or they were sold before I started looking right after they posted the tour dates. I asked what PBS station it was, but honestly I don't remember because my brain was in shock and wasn't processing things. It was something obscure though. I was pretty upset with myself, but if they sold the tickets on PBS before I knew about the show, it's not entirely my fault.

I pleaded for anyone that wanted to sell me their tickets and asked if anyone had extras (ie. if they had other people in their party that hadn't been able to make it) and if I could go in their place at cost. That didn't work, but at least I tried (not sure what I was thinking asking to buy tickets honestly since I didn't have hundreds of dollars in cash on me ... in case you were wondering).

Oh well. I was upset but brushed that negativity aside pretty quickly so I could enjoy the show. It wasn't the first potential Meet and Greet that's passed me by.

Anyways, to prevent this sort of thing from happening to me yet again, I will begin making a list of ALL the PBS stations in my driving range or anywhere I might want to fly and I'll start checking them 1-2 times a week for as long as it takes until I get my M+G tickets. Somewhere, some time, I'm going to meet them. I don't think I've ever wanted anything so badly in my life.

Edit: I did end up doing this and it actually worked!!!


The Show

This was only the second Celtic Woman concert I've seen live. My first Celtic Woman concert was Destiny back in March of this year (edit: 2016).

The dresses look even better live than in pictures. My gosh the girls looked so stunning!

Eabha had a new upstyle hairdo courtesy of Amy Murphy. It was unexpected but really pretty. I normally prefer longer hair rather than having it all scrunched up in a bun, but this style did suit Eabha very well.

Mairead Carlin ... WOW! One thing about Destiny is that it didn't let her really let lose in a solo. She sounded fantastic in Destiny, but her performance in Home for Christmas blew me away! Ave Maria was of course fantastic. But what REALLY astounded me was We Three Kings (with Anto). She did that thing where her voice transcended into "Opera Mode" and oh my goodness was it ever spectacular!!!

The girls took a moment to announce Voices of Angels debuted at #1 on the Billboard World Album and Classical charts and that they Destiny had been nominated for a Grammy! They thanked the audience and all their fans for the wonderful support that allows them to do what they love.

Mairead Carlin (I think it was her, it's kind of a blur), dedicated My Heart Will Go On to all the people who had lost a friend or loved one over the past year. I have to say, I wasn't the biggest fan of the song before Celtic Woman sang it. Sure, it was a great song, but I always found it a bit too sappy to fully enjoy it (I know some people won't understand why I didn't love it before, but it's the truth). I very much enjoyed the Celtic Woman version from Voices of Angels. After hearing the dedication and then hearing them sing it to perfection live ... this song has taken on a whole new depth of meaning for me.

Celtic Woman is one of the few things that can actually make me cry. There were several times during this show when I just couldn't help myself. It was just too beautiful.


Tara

This concert was the first time I got to see Tara live! She looked stunning of course and my gosh was she ever good. "What Child Is This" was incredibly beautiful. Across the World was really impressive! Like we saw in the Facebook live video recently, Tara can really move around the stage! She plays energetically, runs back and forth, and spins around, all while playing at a frenetic pace.

I was a little surprised at the audience reaction. I mean they seemed to enjoy it and appreciate it, but I was literally the only person in the audience (that I know of or that I could hear) that was clapping along. I get it if people wanted to just enjoy the music and I was probably irritating some people around me by clapping, but come on! Tara wants you to clap along! Show her some support! If you don't clap along, she might think she's doing something wrong.

Tara appreciated me getting into it though (more on that in a bit).

If you're reading this Tara, some audiences are just like that I guess, a bit on the reserved side when it comes to things like clapping along and standing ovations and that sort of thing, as I'm sure you've realized by now. They love you, just have a more reserved way of showing it.

Honestly, what I found most endearing about Tara was her adorable and genuine joy at performing as part of Celtic Woman. I know all the girls love it, but Tara REALLY shows it. They introduced Tara near the start of the show and she said a few words about how she had dreamed of being up on stage performing as part of Celtic Woman and how thrilled she is to be living that dream now. She thanked the fans for being so supportive and welcoming right from the start. It's nothing we haven't already heard her say, but what struck me this time is that she was legitimately holding back tears when she was saying this stuff ... and so was I.

After the show, I Tweeted the girls telling them how much I loved the show. Tara replied saying she was glad I enjoyed it. Since I didn't get to meet Tara and tell her in person, I Tweeted a bit of what I wanted to say to her: that they couldn't have picked a better person in the world to join Celtic Woman and that my only regret from the evening was not getting to meet her. I think she was genuinely touched by that. She let me know that she wished she could have met met too, but that she noticed me in the audience. That let me know that she appreciated how much I was enjoying the show. While she made my day, I'm glad and flattered that I helped make her day too.

It seems like such a simple Tweet, but what she Tweeted (and more importantly the way she did it), meant everything in the world to me. I thought a couple of times during the show she was looking at me (like when she was talking about living her dream and being grateful for all the love and support, and when I was apparently the only one in the audience audibly clapping along to Across the World). I was in the third row from stage so I was close enough to see. I figured she was just looking out into the audience, but I guess she really noticed. I don't know for sure but I think she noticed how much some of the songs were moving me. She gave me that kind of adorable "aww, thank you" look a few times. What really struck me is how thoughtful and sweet she is, not just with me obviously, but with all her fans.

Thank you soooo much Tara! You're such a talented performer and wonderful person!


Some Favourite Moments

- Mairead Carlin's voice in We Three Kings ... WOW!!!!!!!!
- Across the World
- Mo Ghile Mear
- My Heart Will Go On (dedication and song)
- Tara


Overall Impression

The orchestration, the girls, the harmony ... it was all spectacular! Like I Tweeted the girls (at intermission actually), this was the best concert I have ever seen in my life! Now granted, this was only my second Celtic Woman concert, but still ... I'm in my 30s and this is legitimately my favourite concert ever. I enjoyed every song.

The first part of the show had more "energy" songs than the second half. I thoroughly enjoyed the first half. The back half of the show took it to another level. Almost every song was so beautiful and was arranged / performed so flawlessly, they had me fending off tears for almost the whole second half of the show. I didn't want it to ever end.

Of the Voices of Angels songs, I seemed to enjoy the live versions even more than the album versions, if that's possible. For those out there reading this that haven't seen them live, please go see them! They're the best in the world. The girls sound amazing live like you wouldn't believe and seeing their emotion and feeling their energy when they're performing is an experience like no other.

Even though I didn't get to meet the girls, this was definitely the best concert I've ever had and one of the best experiences of my life.

Thank you Celtic Woman, from the bottom of my heart.

- Tom

Great write-up of an amazing concert!  Although you didn't get to meet them yet at this concert, your interactions with Tara sound wonderful.

I completely agree about the forum being a great place to share my love of Celtic Woman. I'm very much enjoying it. My friends just don't understand what these ladies mean to me and I don't think there's a way to explain it to them. So now I'm making new friends here