Celtic Woman, lounge photo: Left to right: Lisa Kelly, Lynn Hilary and Máiréad Nesbitt standing from left to right Chloë Agnew and Alex Sharpe,...
Fiddler, vocalists offer schmaltz-fest
Celtic Woman performed this week at the E Center.
West Valley City » "Celtic Woman" could be more aptly called "Vegas Woman."
The gambling oasis in the Nevada desert clearly has a lot more to do with the music, lights and robotic sense of timed schmaltz dominating "Celtic Woman" than does Ireland.
The musicians -- especially fiddler and head pixie imitator Máiréad Nesbitt along with singers Chloë, Lisa Kelly, Lynn Hilary and Alex Sharpe -- are all supremely talented. Their voices are often enthralling and at times inspiring.
But the commercially successful result is far less than the sum of its parts, despite winning over a crowd Tuesday of about 3,000 in West Valley City's E-Center.
One would think that with more than a dozen talented singers and musicians on one stage, the audience would receive a stunning foray into Celtic music.
To assemble all this talent (including a great backing band featuring tasty guitar and kinetic drumming) and wind up with a gooey sweet musical sugar bomb is exasperating to witness.
Despite prompting the crowd to take to its feet three times to applaud the show, the Celtic Woman ensemble didn't seem to show any genuine enthusiasm or really make a distinctive musical mark.
Parade-route smiles and recitations of Hallmark-card worthy musical platitudes -- punctated with enough leg kicks to make a retired Rockette wince -- doesn't count as showmanship. And filling the stage with
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enough dry-ice smoke for a Metallica show doesn't help.
The main culprit in the schmaltz parade was fiddle-player Nesbitt. At first, her combination of fast fiddling and dancing is impressive. But after the 10th (yes, I counted) fiddle solo/aerobics takeover, her leg kicks, headbobs and point-the-bow-to-the-ceiling-for-dramatic-emphasis moves seemed contrived and oh-so scripted.
Composer David Downes' piano and string-heavy, sleepy arrangements removed any tangible trace of soul from well-known songs like Sting's "Fields of Gold," Cyndi Lauper's "True Colors" and Enya's cruise ship jingle "Orinoco Flow (Sail Away)."
The second 60-minute set's "You Raise Me Up" was arguably the show's highlight and showcased one of the quartet's rare group harmonies.
Celtic Woman's main strategy is to use different songs to highlight individual singers. The only problem with that is after a while the difference in the women's voices is barely discernible. Another problem is three-fourths of the show's songs are ballads.
Also dressing the vocalists in matching outfits (each in a pastel form-fitting prom dress meets matron-of-honor gown style) makes the repetition of having singers start at the back of the stage and ending the song in front seem like the musical portion of the Miss America pageant.
What's most sad about this is that Celtic music is rightly hailed as a great art form, while Vegas glitz is rightly condemned for only occasionally rising to the height of guilty pleasure.
The good thing is that Celtic Woman goes so far afield from its alleged origins is that it doesn't damage the reputation of real Celtic music.
By Scott Murphy
The Salt Lake Tribune
Salt Lake City, UT
Updated: 05/13/2009 04:40:03 PM MDT
