Celtic Thunder 2.0

For those of you who have never seen one of their PBS specials, Celtic Thunder is a group of five male vocalists from Ireland and Scotland. I recently discovered that they have a new CD out. I think it actually was released around my birthday--I guess I'd know these things sooner if I wasn't so far behind in watching their YouTube channel videos.

I am very excited about this CD (Get a taste of the awesomeness that is "Heritage" here) because they're actually going back to Celtic songs. They've been covering so many pop songs lately that I was beginning to think they were becoming Celtic in name only. But, finally, the kilts and traditional music are back! Heritage includes songs like "Whiskey in the Jar," "Black is the Color," and "Red, Red Rose."

The new music isn't the only change, however. This might be the last album with all of the original five members (George Donaldson, Paul Byrom, Ryan Kelly, Keith Harkin, and Damian McGinty). First to leave is Paul, who wants to have a solo career. He is one of my least favorites (I'm not a huge fan of his opera-style voice) so I don't really care. However, I do mind that Ryan is quitting, because he "decided to take a step back from Celtic Thunder and the public life that goes along with being part of it." Nooooo! He and Keith are my favorites. Ryan sang all the dark or "bad boy" songs which I dig. As the Celtic Thunder website says, "Ryan's love for drama made him the perfect pick for the role of the 'rogue' or 'Dark Destroyer' in the Celtic Thunder Show." Pretty much all of his songs are my favorites. Now I'm bummed that he's gone, and he's not planning on a solo career. (Too bad--I'd buy his music.) I guess he got tired of the publicity. Maybe he'll go back to being an accountant. Check out their fantastic performance of "That's a Woman"--it really juxtaposes Ryan's style with Paul's usual sappy love songs.

If you've been doing the math, this puts us down to three guys. Paul's replacement is Emmet Cahill. I haven't seen much of him yet, but so far he's okay. And then we have Neil Byrne. He's been around for awhile, playing guitar in the background. He started edging his way forward and singing once in a while. They never really seemed to acknowledge him as an official member, but I expect he'll be getting a bigger role now, which is cool with me.

Now that I'm just getting into Heritage, I've learned that "Storm" will be coming out this month on PBS, with the CD for sale in mid-September. They work fast! The preview for Storm is intriguing--it looks like a full-on musical!

Also, I read that Damian is one of the top five finalists on "The Glee Project," a reality TV show on Oxygen (which I don't get so I haven't seen). The winner of that show gets to be a guest star in seven episodes of Glee's third season! I really hope Damian wins, because that would be really cool. It'd be fun to have an Irish exchange student. The funny thing is, Damian doesn't even need the "instant fame" from being on Glee--he already has it!