Hi all! What can I say - except amazing, breathtaking, fabulous!
Just arrived home after seven hours on various trains and faults on the signals!! Worn out, very cold but very happy after a wonderful couple of days of beautiful music!
The first concert, which was to celebrate 20 years of Celtic Connections was great fun with lots of people on stage together, eg Phil Cunningham, John McC and Mike McG, Julie Fowlis, Karen Mathieson and Capercaillie, etc! Oh, and about twenty or so members of Scottish Power Pipe Band playing their hearts out!
We had a gentleman from Miami sitting next to us, who had just flown in on business an hour before the concert and was lucky enough to find someone with a spare ticket. He loved the show!
I could hardly wait for the second concert, yesterday and it was everything I expected it to be.
It began with a very beautiful and elegant Portuguese fado singer called Carminho and accompanying her were three really wonderful guitarists. They gave a truly mesmerising performance and the audience loved it - we did too!
Then Vicente came on to the stage, alone and played some really beautiful guitar. Eventually the rest of his band arrived on stage and after they had played for a while, Guy, John, Mike, Danny and Donald Shaw joined them for the performance of "Tierra".
It was absolutely amazing and I can't believe how fortunate I was to be there and to hear this beautiful album played live before me in it's entirety! It was just as beautiful as Guy has said and much more! Vicente's guitar playing was breathtaking and everyone, including Vicente's band and the celtic musicians, played so well together - it was wonderful! There were some very Spanish vocals (flamenco) from one member of Vicente's band, who did a lot of hand-wringing and I found him extremely fascinating! Vicente also did some vocals.
At one point in the proceedings, an interpreter came on to the stage and Vicente spoke to him. The interpreter then said that Vicente had loved collaborating with the Scottish musicians so much that he hoped it would continue.
One quite funny thing happened in the middle of the concert. Vincente had obviously broken a fingernail and one of his band went off stage and came back with a nail file! It reminded me of MK in Sydney when he broke a nail and Jack Sonni went off and brought some nail clippers!
The concert ended to huge applause and standing ovation and there was much hugging onstage!
@dmg - The weather was, indeed, snowfree, but extremely cold and very sunny. We did as much sightseeing as we could in only one day. We walked to St Mungo's Cathedral and went to the necropylis. I found it very Gothic and spooky! We went into the crypt and it was really interesting. Then we walked down to the River Clyde and eventually back to Argylle Street and Buchanan Street, where we spent the afternoon in The Lighthouse. There is a Mackintosh exhibition there and I really love his style very much!
Since the concert, I can't get that beautiful music out of my head and I am looking forward to hearing it again on the album, in February!
PS I think it's possible something from the concert might be on BBC Scotland, because their van was outside the venue!
