Today, December 3rd, is my wife Gail’s birthday! I started what I like to call the “Birthday Festival” by taking her to the Fox Theater Thursday night to see her favorite musical group (and mine too), “Celtic Thunder”. The group consists of five guys from Ireland and one from Scotland, backed up by a full orchestra. For those of you not familiar with the group, they have three albums out which feature a compilation of American pop and Irish and Scottish standards. But with the holidays upon us, the first act of last night’s show was all Christmas music, and the second half featured new stuff and some highlights from their previous albums.
I can’t tell you how good these guys are and what a great show they put on! First I should note that the singers range in age from 18 to 43 - and all have incredibly distinctive voices. When the group first formed 4 years ago, the now 18-year-old Damian McGinty was, of course, just 14. He amassed an amazing following among young girls - including my granddaughter Julia, age 13, who has seen the group 3 times along with a bunch of her girlfriends. (One time in Chicago!) Damian’s kind of like Justin Beiber in a kilt but with a voice you wouldn’t believe! And amazingly enough, when he first started he had to be taught each English song word by word as he only spoke Gaelic!
Although last night’s show was their only appearance in Detroit this season, they have CD’s and DVD’s available and I highly recommend them if you are looking for a special gift for someone on your list. The first one called, “The Show” is my favorite - and go for the DVD! To actually watch the performers really adds to the experience.
Believe it or not, after we got home last night, Gail and I actually watched our DVD of “The Show”. So all told… we experienced about four hours of Celtic Thunder last night. (Do you have to go to the hospital after watching more than four hours of Celtic Thunder?)
Just one more thing about that… Rumor has it that the guy’s counterparts, “Celtic Women”, who dance as well as sing, are coming to the Fox on April 7th. I haven’t heard or seen them, but the reviews I’ve read are outstanding!
By the way, as we were walking out the door to go last night, the phone rang. It was Carol Lausman, the wife of Captain David Lausman, the Commanding Officer of the USS George Washington nuclear aircraft carrier based in Japan. That’s the aircraft carrier you’ve been seeing on TV all week during the war games off the coast of South Korea. Dave and Carol are origianlly from Detroit and when I was on the air would listen to the show on the Internet. They called-in a few times and even visited us in the studio when Dave was on leave.
I remember how Jackie and Rebekah literally swooned in “An Officer and A Gentlemen” kind of way when Dave walked in the studio in his dress blues!
Carol said the war games went well and that Dave will most likely be bringing the GW and it’s crew of 6000 back to port around the middle of this month.
By the way… if you see me anywhere around town, I’ll most likely be proudly wearing the USS George Washington baseball cap that Dave and Carol gave me last time they were in town!
Have a great weekend and I’ll see you right back here Monday!
- Dick