Thomas
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« on: September 20, 2008, 04:23PM » |
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Here is The High Kings Pittsburgh show review from the Tuesday September 16, 2008 performance at the Byham Theater.
As many of you know this was my 15th anniversary surprise gift to take Darla with meet and greet tickets to her favorite show, The High Kings.
We started our evening together by going to dinner at our favorite restaurant O’Charley’s. After our meal, we started on our drive to Pittsburgh for our 7PM meet and greet meeting. Once we arrived in Pittsburgh and found a parking spot which was a challenge, as a Pirates game was going on at the same time, we found the Byham Theater with 10 minutes to spare.
We met up with some forum folks from WV there, Henry & Karen as well as Jim & Myra. Once inside the theater, we headed to the merchandise table to load up on stuff to get signed. Darla wanted a black tee shirt, and she had her special silver sharpie pen ready to go.
Our meet and greet experience was fantastic as this was the first time that Darla and I have attended a Madstone Productions meet and greet via PBS/WQED. There were only 20 of us there and we all mingled and had plenty of time to share with all of the lads. We started speaking with Brian first and he openly talked about his family back in Ireland, we were moved that he shared such personal details with us. Then we met Martin and wished him a Happy Birthday and I was surprised that Martin recognized me from the CW Toledo show where we spend a good bit of time in the bar together. Then we had a great conversation with Finbarr and congratulated him with his recent marriage and he proudly showed off his silver wedding band. Darla finally got to meet Darren, her favorite and we also congratulated him with the recent birth of his daughter. Darren simply lit up when I mentioned that Timi said hi. All of the lads remembered Maggie from Orlando, which I made a special mention of as she is off helping the hurricane victims. I was very impressed by the positive and sincere appreciative response I received from all four of them with the hats and all of the promotional work that Charlie and Norma have been doing. We also had the chance to meet and speak with both Ken Craig the Promoter Representative and Maryjo Spillane the Tour Manager.
We had plenty of photos taken and autographs collected and now off to the show we go.
While we were waiting in the atrium before they allowed us to go to our seats, Anthony Byrne played the bagpipes for us, which was a really nice touch.
Our seats were awesome being center stage in the 5th row right next to Henry and Karen.
The songs from the show were as follows:
The rocky road to Dublin The black velvet band Jimmy Murphy Marie’s wedding A storm in my heart The auld triangle The wild rover My home in sweet glenlea Ar éirinn ní neosainn cé hí Paddy’s green shamrock shore Galway to Graceland The holy ground Will ye go lassie go Fields of glory Star of the county down The little beggarman Beggarman jig Dance at the crossroads The leaving of Liverpool The fields of athenry Whiskey in the jar The parting glass The irish rover
Sorry, I did not take notes, but each lad had a solo number which was very well received and Shane McAvinchey set the house on fire with his two dancing numbers. I could not believe the energy and smiles that he generated.
The Pittsburgh audience really got into this show as the house was full and we were all ready to have a great time and we did.
During intermission, we did a Mel maneuver to center stage 2nd row with Henry and Karen following us. It was great to be up close for Act II and see the reactions from the THK that we just met an hour earlier as we sang along “word for word” and “toe to toe”.
Afterwards, THK had a table set up for autographs so we got back in line and thanked them once again. Their reaction to our having such a great time with them was the icing on the cake for our evening. Then we parted ways with our forum friends and you know what CD we played in the car all the way home!!!!!
If you can see THK this tour, please do so, we had a fantastic time and a concert experience we will always fondly remember.
Thank you to: Martin, Brian, Finbarr, and Darren for being so wonderful both on and off of the stage and for making our anniversary celebration something very special.
Thanks,
Tom & Darla
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