Tim Janis: Celtic Heart DVD recording (May 13, 2019)

Celtic Heart - Writeup (Part 1)

Venue

The shows were at the the York Community Auditorium. For a high school auditorium, it was really nice-looking and spacious. There were about 750 seats. The stage was about 10-15 feet away from the first row of seats and the stage was at a comfortable height relative to the seats.

Pre-Show

The merch table was pretty epic. Tim Janis has released a lot of CDs and DVDs over the years and all of them (probably 30 or more) were available at the merch table. I had listened to a few of his albums on Spotify

There were lots of people at the first show and the lobby was quite full.

Tim Janis came strolling through the crowd to meet people as they waited. I got to shake his hand and tell him his music was amazing. He seemed like a pretty shy guy, but appreciated the compliment.

Most of the people in the crowd were there for Tim Janis, as one would expect. There were a small number (maybe 6) of us super-fans there for Mairead and Lynn.

The first concert started at least half an hour late. It was an unusually warm day and until the staff opened the windows, it was getting pretty warm in the lobby.

The Stage

The piano was to stage right (audience's left). There was a full-sized harp and some seats at the back of the stage for the a small assortment of wind and strings (maybe around a 10 piece orchestra). There was an assortment of flutes and whistles sitting upright in a rack near the front of the stage.

The back of the stage was decorated by a curtain. On or behind the curtain was projected a stylized heart filled with a Celtic interlace pattern.

They had already released a mist into the theater for effect.

There were several cameras set up. Two behind the seats near the middle of the theater, one center back and one about half way back on the theater seating, stage left.

They had people taking photos on both wings at the front of the stage.

The lighting was an assortment of cool and pretty colors to suit the music. The lighting definitely wasn't as fancy as at a Celtic Woman show, but it should be effective on the PBS special.

The Show

There were two shows, both of which were recorded. The first show was scheduled to start at 3 PM, the second at 7 PM. The shows were around 90 minutes in length.

The show started with Lynn emerging in her hooded CaraNua cloak. Underneath the cloak she wore a gray dress decorated around the waist with silver and what was possibly a lotus leaf pattern. She drew back the hood shortly into the show and later performed without the cloak.

Mairead wore two different dresses during the show. For the first half, she wore the white and gold gown she wore during her Hibernia photo shoot. I really like that dress. For the second half, she wore a stunning, glittery gold and beige dress.

The music was very relaxing. Celtic Woman shows have a lot of variety and different styles of music. Almost all the songs had an ethereal sound. They weren't necessarily very catchy songs, but for what they were supposed to be, they were very pretty and enchanting. I'm quite sure Lynn was highly involved in the vocal arrangements. They certainly had her style.

There weren't many, if any lyrics. The vocalists (Lynn and 4 supporting ladies) were used almost like instruments. There was a lot of very, very pretty humming.

For those that don't know, this was my first time ever seeing Lynn Hilary live! She sounded gorgeous! It's one thing to hear her on albums and on the Songs from the Heart DVD. The way she sounded live exceeded my every expectation. Her pure voice, her breathtaking high notes, and her resonance were all incredible. Her humming was practically angelic. I've only ever heard Chloë and Mairead Carlin make sounds that beautiful.

When Lynn looked in my direction, she had this way of smiling just as she looked away. Those adorable smiles were soul-penetrating. They were so simple, so subtle, yet soooooo powerful.

There were about 19 songs total and Lynn performed in almost in every song. Mairead was prominent in at least half of them [EDIT: the track from my DVD writeup has the full set of songs she's in]. Mairead moved around the stage a bit though not as liberally as she did with Celtic Woman (that much movement probably wouldn't have suited the mood of the music).

The other lead performer in the show included the Harp Twins (Camille and Kennerly) and Eimear McGeown. Eimear (pronounced "Eee-mur") who played the flute, low whistle, and tin whistle (perhaps some other variations of whistle as well). I love the relaxing sound of those winds. There were a few moments during the show when it sounded like they perhaps had her volume turned up too high and the sound almost started distorted over the speakers. But I suspect they'll be able to fix that up in editing.

Tim Janis played the piano for the whole show. Someone was taking his jacket on and off almost every other song. It will be interesting to see what it looks like on the PBS special with all those wardrobe changes.

Both shows seemed to go quite smoothly (significantly more smoothly than the Ancient Land recording). There were no full song re-takes that I recall. There was one quick false start when they restarted a song a few seconds into the song. There was no intermission either.

For a show that was mostly relaxing songs, it did an excellent job of maintaining my attention. I suspect that was in part due to me being transfixed by Lynn and her gorgeous voice. Whatever the reasons, the show seemed to flow nicely and went by quickly even without many up-tempo songs.

The Crowd

For the first show, the theater seemed about 80% full. The center rows were filled to the back. Only the back wings were empty. The second show was less well attended, with maybe 60-70% of the seats filled. I was a bit surprised that nobody started clapping during Mairead's "energy number." But I suppose the audience was mostly Tim Janis fans and energy numbers aren't really his style.

Availability

The target airing on PBS is June 2019. There will be a DVD as well.

Mairead and Lynn should both be on the album too [EDIT: they are].

Post Show

Before the first show, both Mr. Peabody and I had separately requested copies of gorgeous show poster. The staff remembered and gave all of us superfans unused posters from storage.

The group of us Celtic Woman superfans waited in the lobby after the show. The Harp Twins were the first to come out and meet us. I got to get a photo with both of them together and we chatted for a while. They talked about how much fun they had working with Mairead and about how heavy their harps were (over 30 lbs). They had been doing an outdoor shoot for the PBS special the day prior to the show and apparently their backs were still a bit sore from carrying their harps for so long.

After a while, Mairead came out to meet us. It had been a busy few days of audio recording, video shoots, rehearsals, and performances but she still took the time to meet with her fans. She was very appreciative of us who had traveled a long way to support her. She hugged me first. <3 We each got individual photos with Mairead. She chatted with us for a while. One of the things we talked about was the Celtic Woman concert she recently attended: her first as a member of the audience. She mentioned that it's a smaller production now than it was, but she really enjoyed the show. She was really impressed with Megan and her deceptively powerful voice. She said that after seeing it from the audience, she finally understood why we love Celtic Woman concerts so much.

Apparently the current Celtic Woman performers and crew treated her like a legend. They all looked up to her. They were inspired by her presence in the audience and wanted to make their performances extra special in honor of her. They even gave her a shout out during the show to tell her those things in front of the whole audience. Mairead felt very special.

After Mairead took photos with us and signed our posters, I practically begged her if she could let Lynn know I'd never met her before and how much I wanted to meet her. Mairead said she didn't know where Lynn was, but if I waited out in the parking lot she would try to find Lynn for me.

We waited for quite a while, but I wasn't going to leave until I got to meet Lynn and tell her how amazing she was.

Finally, about 45-60 minutes after the show ended, Lynn emerged from the stage door! She was shy, as I expected, but she came over to me and extended her arms for a hug. I told her she had the most beautiful, pure voice I had ever heard live. I told her that her arrangements were gorgeous and sophisticated and that she was brilliant. I told her that I loved CaraNua. I asked if they were planning to tour. it sounded like they were thinking about doing live shows, but their focus for the foreseeable future will be recording in the studio. I'd be surprised if they did any live shows in the US this year.

I got a photo with Lynn and got her to sign my poster. I also got to hug her a few times.

Extras

There were numerous scenes filmed outdoors, on location in Maine. I've seen a few of the sneak peeks and photos from those shoots and they look pretty impressive. Those will most likely be spliced into the songs on the PBS special and DVD.

However, I heard from a a few reliable sources that there were interviews with the performers and that those should appear on the PBS special and as DVD extras.

Overall

I really enjoyed this show. You may find that Celtic Woman shows have more variety and perhaps catchier songs. The music is very soothing, Mairead was fantastic (I'll have a bit more on a specific song she performed in the album writeup) and Lynn's voice is incredibly beautiful. I certainly recommend watching this, so keep an eye out for this show on PBS and DVD starting around June!

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