An Irish Evening: Live At The Grand Opera House, Belfast [Live]

The Chieftains | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (January 28, 1992)
• Original Release Date: January 28, 1992
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Live
• Label: RCA Victor
• ASIN: B000003F7B
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #135,085 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

During the early '90s, the Chieftains embarked upon a series of multigenre crossover recordings. Major pop stars were brought in as guest artists and a few had the goods, but others came across as wannabes or well-meaning if clueless PR victims. This Grammy-winning live album from 1992 features the Who's Roger Daltrey and American singer Nanci Griffith. Sadly, Griffith's husky, thin-textured voice is inadequate to the demands of Irish vocal ornamentation and phrasing. Daltrey, meanwhile, sounds raucous, unidiomatic, and amateurish; plus his presence with a traditional Irish music ensemble in the middle of British-occupied Belfast seems a bit much. In any case, courting comparison with the Chieftains' own singer, Kevin Conneff, is a risky business at best. The instrumentals are typically accomplished and future Riverdance diva Jean Butler provides charmingly percussive footwork, but the trap drummer on the last tune is glaringly out of place. --Christina Roden

Product Description

This Grammy-winning live album features the Who's Roger Daltrey and singer Nanci Griffith paired with one of the first bands to popularize traditional Irish music around the world. Includes North Amerikay; Lilly Bolero/The White Cockade; Little Love Affairs; Red is the Rose; Mason's Apron; Stone; Raglan Road ; a new version of Behind Blue Eyes , and more. --This text refers to an alternate Audio CD edition.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars If I Could Give This Six Stars I Would, October 4, 2002

By 

"etreacy99" (New Milford, NJ United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: An Irish Evening: Live At The Grand Opera House, Belfast (Audio CD)

I don't know what the reviewer's problem is, but nobody in the Opera House this night was thinking about the British occupation, they were all too busy enjoying one of the best Chieftains live shows ever! Only Paddy and the Boys can meld rock, pop, country-folk, the dance and traditional Celtic music into one fantastic show like this. Daltrey's pub drinking style is PERFECT for the band, and the version of "Raglan Road" contained here is one of the best ever recorded. Nanci Griffith sounds like she could've been born in County Mayo. I would urge anyone to get a copy of this immediately, there's none better! A topnotch addition to any longtime fan's Cheiftains' CD collection or a good starter for those of you just beginning to get a taste for this worldclass Irish band's music. Long before Riverdance there was the CHIEFTAINS!

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Six guys and a flute set Belfast on fire, January 22, 2000

By 

tropic_of_criticism - See all my reviews

This review is from: An Irish Evening: Live At The Grand Opera House, Belfast (Audio CD)

It would be hard to imagine a better introduction to the world of live Celtic entertainment than this cross-border recording from Belfast.

Though a few tunes feature stars from outside the genre, for the most part the recording imparts the visceral experience of an entirely Gaelic evening. There's an immediacy to this recording that makes the heart swell in a way that even the Chieftains themeselves have not quite been able to replicate on stuido albums. Some might say that this is true of most forms of music, but I think Irish music in particular is transformed for the better by the intimacy of 'being there'.

There is, for instance, a wonderful a capella performance by Kevin Conneff called 'North Americay'. It's a fairly complicated melody, made all the more thrilling because you know he doesn't have the opportunity to restart and try again should he fail to hit the notes. Elsewehere, there's an amazing flute performance that gets so intricate towards the end that the audience gasps as they meet the music for the first time. The fact that the audience is reasonably well-microphoned here adds so much to your experience of this album, in fact, that there are times where you can almost feel them leaning forward in their seats to get a better view of the musicians.

Of course, there's also the VHS capture of this event, but I'd encourage you to hold off on purchasing that...until you hear this a few times. Call me a purist, but being able to actually see all this being performed is kinda like seeing a movie before you read the screenplay. Sure, the total performance is what counts. But if you skip to the finished product, you never have time to dream about the possibilities.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Classic Chieftains on stage!, August 23, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: An Irish Evening: Live At The Grand Opera House, Belfast (Audio CD)

My first exposure to the Chieftains, Ireland's "Musical Ambassadors," many years ago. For those wishing to expose their musical tastes to Irish music, this is a great album to start with. This particular album reveals the Chieftains' true stage presence. A must buy for any Chieftains fan!