Made In Belfast: Brian Kennedy

Tonight Craig and I saw every woman's best gay boyfriend --- Belfast Heartthrob, Brian Kennedy. Brian Kennedy is like the Julio to the Inglesias, the Tom to the Jones. He's got a brilliant voice, he's sexy, and he is flamin'. His claim to fame was when he was discovered by Van Morrison and Brian has been up Van Morrison's ass ever since.

But truly, I really enjoyed his concert despite the fact that Craig went kicking and screaming. For one, Craig was reluctant to take part in Feile an Phobail because it is a Catholic event. And two, Brian Kennedy is a threat to his manhood and thanks to me, Craig is now the laughing stock at his place of work. And between you and me, he really enjoyed the concert too but will not admit it. I saw him sneak a snapshot of the pretty boy. I found it kind of funny that over 97% of the audience were female young and old. Clonard Monastery became a big receptacle of estrogen. I'm sure if the gig wasn't held in the house of God, unmentionables would be thrown on the stage. I was also surprised to see sober durdles so vibrant and having so much fun! There was a lot of audience participation, everyone was singing and clapping. They go nuts for this dude, it was amazing! It was touching to see everyone so into the songs and singing them. It was like being in a pub at a mass scale.


Clonard Monastery is such a beautiful cathedral and it was the perfect place to experience music. The acoustics were sublime and it really complimented Brian Kennedy's voice beautifully. He sang a lot of Van Morrison covers (of course), excellent renditions of Al Greene's 'Let's Stick Together' and Cole Porter's 'Night and Day'. He also sang my favorite song 'Crazy Love' which was featured in the movie, When A Man Loves A Woman, starring Meg Ryan and Andy Garcia. Craig's favorite song was 'Raise You Up'. I recorded some of the songs mentioned above. I will try to post them up, that is if it doesn't sound like crap.

Opening acts were the Feile choir and Eemir Kenny. Emir Kenny is from County Louth. She sounded like Dolores O'Riordan on crack in a forgetful mood. She couldn't remember the words to her own songs. It sounded like she was making it up as she went along. Boy, was she hard to sit through.

Even though I'm not a big fan of Brian Kennedy. I mean I think he is good but it's not like I would buy any of his albums. He has ten albums by the way. Hard to forget since he's mentioned it like 50 times all throughout the concert. It is a once in a lifetime opportunity to see him play in Belfast and in the very place where he as a young altar boy sang in the Clonard Monastery choir. Priceless. You can't get any better than that.

BTW...the guitar that Brian was playing was a Lowden guitar. The very guitar that Craig aka Hop Along fretted meaning he built the frets on the guitar. He was fretting throughout the whole concert because the guitar was screaming 'Daddy'. Get it? Hahaha. Fretting!