Voices of the Angels

Last night I had the privilege of going to a concert of one of my favorite groups. Celtic Woman has to be one of the greatest ensembles of female vocalists of all time...go ahead and fight me on that one. I can trace my love for this vein of music to a river running trip to the Green River I made over 12 years ago.

My buddies and I were all sitting around the campfire talking about the finer things in life, and from out of one of the tents came this angelic voice that I had neer heard before. I never knew Lloyd could sing like that...oh wait, no it was the first time I ever heard Enya sing. He has his stereo playing the CD The Celts, and instantly I was transported to medieval Caledonia. Enya and her music soon became an obsession of mine, and I could not get enough of her melodic voice. My Saturdays were filled with yardwork with my huge-ass CD player shoved in my pocket playing Enya over and over again. A little weird? Here I was a 16 year old putz spending hours listening and memorizing the Gaelic verses of the famous artist. Ya, ok...my wife still makes fun of me and my obsession with all things ancient. A few years later I went to Scotland and there I fell in love with the bagpipes (I even began bagpipe lessons later that summer,) and became so intrigued at my family's Scottish and Irish ancestry.

Anywho, fast forward a few years, and I happened to be watching PBS and stumbles upon a group from Ireland named Celtic Woman...and once again, I was immediately bewitched. I sat there for two hours, open-mouthed and teary eyed (try and not cry when they sing Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring,) and again, my wife made fun of me. I found out when the next showing was and fired up the TiVo. I had to talk about it at work the next day, and one of my co-workers saw it too, and he was caught in the mystical web that is Celtic Woman. Fast Forward a couple of months, and a business trip opportunity arose for about five of us at the agency to go to New York and New Jersey to plan and execute a World Record event. It was decided that my fellow Celtic Woman fan and I would spend our time on the Jersey side while the other three worked the New York side. During my endless media research for the area, (The New York/New Jersey media market is the largest in the nation,) I 'happened' to stumble upon the smallest newspaper in the entire media list's website, and there was a little banner saying that Celtic Woman was going to be playing at a venue 15 miles from our hotel...on one of the nights we were there. "Are you kidding me?" My associate likes to say that this event was truly brought to pass by "The Hand of God." Seriously, what are the chances that the two Celtic Woman fans in the whole agency would wind up in New Jersey together, on that date, in FREAKING HOLMDEL, NJ? It can only be pointed to one thing..."Divine Guidance." So, needless to say, we made it a point to get to the concert come Hell or High Water. Let me just say that the venue was unbelieveable (the P.N.C. Bank Arts Center)

The concert blew us away, and I have to say it was probably the best concert I had ever been to.

Fast forward to last night, when my best buddy, his wife, me and my wife hit the E Center and saw the Celtic Wom(e)n fill the arena with haunting melodies. As we were leaving, my buddy said it was probably the best concert he had ever been to. Our wives even liked it...who is laughing now honey? HMMMM?!

So if you haven't checked them out, I highly recommend looking at Celtic Woman.

Here is a little taste for you all: Check my next post.