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Celtic Woman's "Isle of Hope" tour comes doused in sweetness and sprinkled with fairy dust.

If you like that kind of thing - say, a Harlequin romance novel mixed with a Las Vegas-style version of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" - then you probably were in the audience Friday night at Birmingham's BJCC Concert Hall.

The 3,000-seat venue was crowded with fans, many of them obviously immune to sugar shock, during the 8 p.m. performance.

Celtic Woman is an ethereal female vocal troupe that tours with a percussion-heavy band, a handful of back-up singers and a lively fiddler. Their shows are extremely stylized in appearance and tone, focusing on soft pop songs with a Celtic-Irish flair.

Granted, the troupe has a great deal of talent. The women can really sing; the band can really play; the fiddler is charismatic and deft. Still, it's hard to get excited about a concert that asks its lead performers to wade into an ocean of sentimental goo and stay there for a couple of hours, cooing and swaying.

Friday's performance proved quite similar to Celtic Woman's 2008 appearance here, with a few tweaks in the set list and costumes. The lineup of primary singers has changed slightly; Lisa Kelly (subbing for Orla Fallon) has joined Lynn Hilary, Chloe Agnew and Alex Sharpe.

Unless you're a Celtic Woman buff, the switch makes very little difference. The entire production is so high concept, one pretty soprano in a colorful gown is just as good as another.

The same cannot be said for the fiddler's role, which Mairead Nesbitt owns completely. At the BJCC, she pranced with high-stepping elan, flourishing her bow and darting among the vocalists like Puck on steroids.

Like everything else about Celtic Woman, Nesbitt's impact relies on obvious skill, enticing beauty and mind-numbing repetition. After Nesbitt makes a couple of impish appearances, it's easy to predict what she'll do for the rest of the show.

She speeds it up; she slows it down. She smiles with joy; she mugs with glee. She stretches into a solo, then skips off stage.

During two sets on Friday, Celtic Woman offered a gently mixed bag of covers and standards, along with New Age-y tunes written expressly for the group. The agenda included "Danny Boy," "You Raise Me Up," "Have I Told You Lately," "Goodnight My Angel," "This Is My Prayer for You," "You'll Be In My Heart," "The Blessing," "At the Ceili," and "Sing Out!"

One new song, "Oh America," was very much in the Celtic Woman vein, yet it made blatant pulls at patriotic heartstrings. (The creators of this troupe are smart and shameless.) Of course, "Oh America" received a standing ovation, as did many other numbers throughout the evening.

Final verdict: Ecstasy for some, agony for others. Whichever side you fall on, there's no denying the group's popularity.

The Birmingham News
Sunday, March 29, 2009
MARY COLURSO
News staff writer