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Edited on Sat Mar-18-06 01:19 AM by mcscajun
I've listened to their music for years and years, but I'd never had the opportunity to see them live until Friday night...rounding out a Grand St. Patrick's Day celebration. And a finer St. Pat's day I could not have asked for...'cept it Could Have Been a WEE Bit warmer....but no rain, no snow, that's Grand. :)
A fine parade, wonderful company...the folks I went to Ireland with this year and last, friends of friends, plus my younger sister, her husband, her co-worker (who, bless her soul, had chemical handwarmers to share == w00t!!!)
After the parade, a fine dinner out with just friends, and to wrap up the evening, an incredible performance at Carnegie Hall by one of the very Finest Irish groups around...around for the last 44 years, actually, The Chieftains. For the first set, just traditional music with a couple of guest musicians sitting in, plus a small and very young troupe from Cape Breton, The Cotters. At intervals, the most astounding Irish Step Dancers would come out and perform to the music, including one of the guest musicians who also dances...amazingly. He was one of two guys from Canada who dance together and solo in what's called the Ottowa Valley style. DAMN they were Astounding! A cross between traditional step dancing, The Nicholas Brothers, and some other stuff I couldn't quite put my finger on. A harp player that could make you weep, she was so good.
Second set was backed by the Notre Dame Symphony, the return of all the guests and dancers from set one, AND...in a stunning surprise, guest vocalist Elvis Costello to sing "Long Journey Home", a joint composition of Costello and the leader of the Chieftains, Paddy Moloney.
If on every ocean the ship is a throne
And for each mast cut down another sapling is grown
Then I could believe that I'm bound to find
A better life than I left behind
But as you ascend the ladder
Look out below where you tread
For the colors bled as they overflowed
Red, white and blue
Green, white and gold
So I had to leave from my country of birth
As for each child grown tall
Another lies in the earth
And for every rail we laid in the loam
There's a thousand miles of the long journey home
But as you ascend the ladder
Look out below where you tread
For the colors bled as they overflowed
Red, white and blue
Green, white and gold
and that was it, Costello was gone. The show just kept getting better...and better. After a rousing finale with Everyone (a nearly impossible number of people onstage) getting a turn in the spotlight, and a Big Standing Ovation...came the one and only encore. And What an Encore! A little dance tune, UP with the House lights...dancers onstage to show how...and then dancers OFFstage to lead people out of their seats and around the aisles of Carnegie Hall...weaving round and through and back again. Too bad I was up in the Tier boxes (Great Seats, BTW) or I would have joined them. Some (quite a lot of some) people actually wound up Onstage for the end of the performance. Proving that you Can get to Carnegie Hall without "Practice, Practice, Practice" -- as for us, all it took was the 6 train and the R train...but then again, WE didn't wind up onstage. :)
We wore ourselves out clapping in time and just plain applauding. It was GREAT!
Hope your St. Pat's was half so good. :)
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