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On November 8th 1999, I checked out the unofficial Clannad website and saw that Máire Brennan was doing a concert tour of the US. As I scanned the list I saw that Los
Angeles was scheduled for November 9th!!! So I hurriedly made reservations at Largo's Pub in Los Angeles where the concert was scheduled, and was somewhat glad that the lack of advertising made it easy to get reservations the
day before the concert. Largo's is a small kinda Irish pub in the middle of a Jewish section of Fairfax. Rather humorous to be waiting in line outside an Irish pub surrounded by interesting Jewish stores like Schwartz's
bakery across the street with lots of tempting looking goodies (ok, so I was hungry :-). Largos holds about a hundred people so it was a very intimate concert setting. We were lucky to be centrally seated about 20 feet from
the stage. Things were running a bit late for some reason, but the band finally came on stage about 9:30 (scheduled for 9:00). The stage is very small, but her 6 piece band managed to squeeze in. But, as she
jokingly complained, it left no room for dancing. They put on a great show with a mix of songs from her most recent album, Whisper to the Wild Water, from Perfect Time and various Clannad and traditional tunes. It made
for a enjoyable mix that highlighted the various talents of her band. Some singers spend a lot of time in the studio patching together various takes to make a final vocal that sounds good on record, but when you see them
live, you are disappointed by the quality of their singing. Not so with Máire. She sounds as good live as she does on record and makes it look effortless. She is blessed with a beautiful clear voice that the sound
system manages to muddy a bit rather than enhance. They came back for two encore songs and we hung around after the show to meet her. As you can see we got our CDs autographed, my wife seems to be quite an
aggressive autograph hound. Quite a switch from her normally easy going disposition :-). We forgot to try and get our picture taken with her :-( but I did get some pictures during the performance. I will
post them when I get the film developed. |
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