A Friend Says That I Need An Intervention

I really don't think that an act of intervening is necessary.  All I have done is to arrange to see my favorite, favorite, all time favorite singing/musical group three times in a six month period.


Since receiving, from that same friend, Celtic Woman's A Christmas Celebration DVD, I have wanted to be in attendance for one of their Christmas concerts.  This year, I shall drive four plus hours to sit in my front row center seat at Harrah's Cherokee Event Center to hear and see their The Best of Christmas concert.  Mairead, I hope that you like the bow tie I'll be wearing as much as or more than the one you said you liked after your show in Durham this past Spring. 
I plan to arrive there hours and hours before the 9 pm show, in hopes of seeing and spending some time with these lovely and beloved ladies of Ireland.  Maybe they'll be in the casino.  If so, I shall hope to have good luck, as I hope that they will be having good gaming luck, despite the Friday the 13th date.  Maybe they'll let me sing to them the two verse Christmas carol I've sort of plagiarized for them, that I call Joy To My Soul.  
As they let Mairead Nesbitt vocalize the final line in A Christmas Celebration, maybe we can finally hear Tara's beautiful voice.  Just don't sing or say "Let it snow". 

Six months following, during the last week of their Celebration tour, I shall immensely enjoy them again, from my orchestra right center, front row seat in the brand new Tanger Performing Arts Center in my hometown of Greensboro, NC.
Between those shows, I shall share, for the first time, my in-person admiration and adoration of these women with another.  I'm treating my beloved elder sister in honor of her Friday the 13th birthday in her adopted hometown of Raleigh.  Though her musical tastes tend toward beach oldies and country, even she recognizes Celtic Woman as "remarkable".
Given the Spring tour name, I'm hoping that Maestro Murphy can pen an Irish/Celtic arrangement of the Kool and The Gang classic Celebration to open the show, probably with Eabha singing lead.

The show could close with a Celtic version of Three Dog Night's hit Celebrate!  Dance to the Music.

That could segue into Finale/ Mo Ghile Mear, as they did to wrap up their Powerscourt performance in 2009 and their San Antonio show in 2013, as well as others, I'm sure.

 

 

Within the show, I would love for Celtic Woman to celebrate the kinship shared between the group and their American fans, of which Chloe spoke.  After all, many of us in the US are of proud Irish ancestry.   O America!, with a video screen backdrop of Americana and fireworks would be so special and celebratory,  Wouldn't I love to join, playing Ray Fean's snare part.  I don't have my drum anymore, but I do have my sticks, which he autographed a couple of years ago.
Whether solo sung by Eabha, as I saw and heard her do in Charlotte a few years back, or with all voices, as Chloe, Lisa, cousin Alex and Lynn Hilary performed it in years past, the story of Annie Moore ties Irish and American together like no tale ever told.  The Elvis Costello classic, Long Journey Home which Celtic Woman performs so heartfeltly, as does their countryman, Tommy Fleming, is another grand celebratory song which I interpret as another lyrical example of the alliance and allegiance shared by Ireland and America, would be welcomed to hear.     

I would love to celebrate with Celtic Woman standards like Nil Se'n La, Teir Abhaile Riu and Mo Ghile Meir, especially if they don't, or even if they do use Mo Ghile Meir as part of the show's closing.  I would LOVE to see and hear Tara run and play her way onstage following a double percussion solo, her long, luxurious, rare red hair flowing behind her.   I would be delighted whether they were performed as they were in years past, or as they have been more recently.

Sorry about all of the Teir Abhaile Riu videos, but it has always been maybe my very favorite.  The various groupings of women of Celtic Woman have performed it in so many wonderful arrangements over the years.  Whether from the Emerald or Believe dvd's, two concerts at which I wish I had been, or from The Voices of Angels show in Charlotte, where I was in attendance, it is just a wonderfully celebratory song.  Their presentation of it in The Queen City, on a sunny Sunday Spring afternoon, the weekend of St. Patrick's Day was a mystical, magical, musical moment for me.   Superlative Susan playing her spoons; Eabha, my heroess fingering her flute; cute, cute, supercute Mairead wearing her cute little squeezebox; and of course, terrific Tara bowing her fabulous fiddle demonstrate the outrageous range of talent the women of Celtic Woman possess.
I'm not sure if any Celtic Woman show, especially one called Celebration would be complete without a celebratory salute to the Celtic woman who perhaps pioneered the concept of beautiful Irish women making beautiful Irish music making it a staple in so many (but not enough) American recordings collections.  It was Enya's Orinoco Flow which made me aware in the early, early nineties.

It was happenstance that I discovered and fell in love with Enya and her music.  She was on the Muzac in a restaurant where I was dining.  Finding out who she was, I immediately went to the record store in the same shopping center as the restaurant and bought her cassette, as one of my quite rare music purchases   If Orinoco Flow is performed, perhaps a slight bit of lyrical literary license could alter the lyrics, from "Rob Dickens" to "Kavanaugh" to celebrate the business brilliance of Dave Kavanaugh, which coupled with the musical genius of Maestro David Downes made Celtic Woman possible.

  

And to further feature the ladies' instrumental mastery, along with the mastercraft of their musicians' and dancers, they just have to perform The Kesh Inn.  It won't be quite the same for me, without Ray, but it will still be wonderful and I will love love love it.

  I'm not sure if there has ever been a happier tune and celebratory song presented by any contingent of Celtic Woman than Ballroom of Romance, as presented by the current four at Johnstown Castle.

And I would SO love to see and hear Tara McNeill perform her rendition of Granuaile's Dance.  I'll be the old man chair dancing and cheering in Raleigh and Greensboro.

And I do so hope that Megan will reprise her remarkable rendition of Fields of Gold, which has so much and many bittersweet, heartwarming/heartbreaking personal meaning and memories for me.

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I would be ecstatic to see and hear Eabha tell her talents as songstress and songwriter with her original composition Garden of Eden and any other she may have recently written.

If Amazing Grace is included, as it generally is to feature Sir Byrne and his bagpipes, I DO wish that they would include the "When we've been there ten thousand years" contemporarily accepted final verse.  Granted, it wasn't part of the 1779 originally written hymn, but it so inspiring and uplifting.

Regardless of how Maestro Murphy, the musicians and Celtic Woman arrange and present, I know that I shall be raised up.