Tours:

Concerts:

Clemson, February 27, 2011

 

Ticket_20110227_ClemsonAfter two days off, with lovely weather for some railroad photography, it was show time again.  I had purchased Sarah's extra ticket and told her I'd be wearing my Fiddler Crossing jacket so she could find me.  What I hadn't counted on was the temperature being 80 degrees in February!  Nevertheless, I wore my jacket and we found each other.  There were about 12 of of us altogether, representing several of the forums.

Despite the fancy name, the LittleJohn Coliseum is just your basic arena.  It was setup as a half-house and was nowhere near sold out.  The floor appeared to be full but the bleachers were barely half occupied.  Katharine, Kristine, Sarah and I were in the second row on the floor, all the way to the right; not the best seats in the house but not bad either.  I was about 4 seats or so to the right of Ewen and right in front of the big speakers.  John (JByrd) and his wife were just to our left.  Instead of sitting on insulating pads on ice we were on plywood sheets covering the basketball court.  Sarah got a PSU to the front row due to a no-show.  Later, the rest of us got an ISU to the front row, about 8 seats closer to the center.  That put me right where I love to be for … well, you know by now.

Before the show started Bubba was cruising the audience and we chatted briefly.  He is really a nice guy.    One thing I noticed that was different about the staging was that the front light bar was much farther in front of the stage than usual.  In fact, it was almost right over the front row which in an arena is pretty far back.  They used that to good effect later in the show.

Soon the wind started and the stage lights dimmed.  But wait, the house lights are still on at full brightness.  Just in the nick of time somebody flipped the switch and the arena plunged into darkness.  Soon Chloë's voice was heard and the journey began.  The crowd seemed to be into it and clapped along without urging and applauded at all the right spots, and a few extra ones.  There was a little bit of VSS at the end of the first act but overall very good.  The girls fed off of the energy and everything was cranked up a notch.  I think Máiréad is deliberately pacing herself because once again she did 10 spins, 4 slow and 6 fast.  Those indescribable  bits in Orinoco Flow seemed extra powerful tonight and I got a chill up my spine.  Very cool.

Ticket_20110227_Clemson_MGDespite my initial location the girls found me.  Then they had to find me again after intermission.  They did.  Amazing Grace was extra amazing tonight.  Anthony started in the bleachers to the left of the stage and walked down to the floor and up the center steps to the stage.  The arena steps are awkward because both the height and the spacing are different than normal steps.  He made it down with no issues and got a deserved round of applause.  At the end they used their own spots from the front light bar, rather than the house spots, to light the girls.  It gave a much different effect with the light coming more from above than from the front.  Once again very cool.  The audience also applauded the girls before they left the stage and Anthony got a standing ovation at the end; both exceedingly rare events.  LisaL continues to ham it up during Dulaman and tweaked her instrumental surprise a little more.  Last Rose Fantasia was once again spectacular; I can't get enough of that.  LisaL's ability to hit those high notes got me again during Non C'e Piu.  Wow!

ClemsonAfter the show Dustin came down to check our names off of his list.  The M&G ended up being about 40 people, like Atlanta, but was well organized.  Our guests were LisaK and Máiréad.  Squeals of delight were heard from the twins when Dustin made the announcement.  As usual, I hung towards the back with John and his wife.  We talked about the Corrs while the line crept along.  And creeping is a good thing because it means people were not being rushed.  Lots of pictures were being taken; I took a few while in line.  Lisa mentioned that I was alone again but I told her I was with other forum members, just not all from the Máiréad forum.  They really do notice.  She asked me what I thought about the show and once again I told her it was the “worst show ever.”  This was my first time seeing Máiréad since last fall and we had a delightful little chat.  John was kind enough to operate my camera and I got my second ever picture of me with her.  *Sigh*

The original review is here.

 

Line02

© Copyright 2012 by Michael D. Brown.  All rights reserved.
Email comments to: webmaster@mrpeabody.us