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!

My Name is Flippin' Yank and I Am A Pluviophobic

I just realized that I may have a phobic condition called Pluviophobia: The Fear of rain or of being rained on. I have to learn that life doesn't stop because of the rain. Because of my Pluviophobia, I missed all the amazing events that happened this weekend...

Fellow blogger welldonefillet just reminded me that the Gay Pride festival was last Saturday. I'm sorry I missed it. It would have been interesting to see how it compares to the mother of Gay Pride Parades in San Francisco. I didn't hear any controversy over it other than the comment made by MP Iris Robinson who said that "gay sex was an abomination". As a result of her ignorance, party official demand that she resign as Chair from the Stormont Health Committee. Despite the downpour, thousands of people were still out there cheering the LGBT community! It goes to show that Belfast is slowly turning over a new leaf and becoming more tolerant of 'alternative' lifestyles. Baby steps.

I'm also sorry I missed the opening of Feile An Phobail in West Belfast, which is the largest community festival in Europe. All is not lost. There will be a full week full of events comedy acts, art exhibits workshops, music concerts, drive-in movies the list goes on and on. The options are so daunting, there's so many to choose from! I'm planning to attend some of them, if I can figure out which ones to go to.

Magic of the Pants at the Grand Opera House

Last night we saw Magic of the Dance at the Grand Opera House. Advertised as the "Irish Dance Sensation of the Decade", I was expecting it to be cheezy but I didn't expect it to be a big mountain of steaming turd.

It starts out with ominous music and a screen of Celtic images in the background, Christopher Lee narrates (which doesn't fit into the storyline whatsoever). Fog fills the stages and out comes a line of monks marching with torches carrying a woman in white. They then start Irish dancing as a group and she sees her Irish prince and they embrace. And then the devil comes out and he dances and some fairies flit about and throw confetti. All of sudden it segues into the modern harbor where you see 4 New Yorkers dressed in sailor suits and they tap dance on a bunch of oil drums. The New York Tap Dance All-Stars, how they fit into Irish dancing I don't know. Then it reverts back to medieval Ireland more fairies and demons. Then it goes back to Brooklyn, New York where they tap dance with a bunch of basketballs. And then it goes back to Ireland where the young innocent maiden starts singing and becomes corrupted by a bunch of devils. Lots of fire and fog in this scene. She dies and the Irish dude come out all sad and starts doing a jig. And then the fairies come out and she lives again. They get married and live happily ever after. Then the Irish Dancers and New York Tap All Stars do a showdown. The Irish lead dude's shoes burst into flames and dances for two minutes. They do their bows and then the lead guy falls on his ass as he exits the stage. The End.

The highlight of my evening was not only that the leading dude fell on his ass, but being inside the beautiful Grand Opera House with it's painted ceilings and guilded balconies. It was like I was transported back to the Victorian Era. The raspberry ice cream we ate during intermission. And afterwards Mongolian Beef at Red Panda.

I want my money back.

Belfast Carnival et al...

Woohoo! We had such a productive day! We woke up early in the morning and headed down to the buzzing of St. George's farmers market and bought the freshest cuts of meat and produce. We then headed up to the Belfast Carnival in the City Center and enjoyed the swaying hips of samba women dancing to the beat of the drums on glamorous floats, an array of musical acts, colorful, flamboyant costumes, and circus performers! FUN FUN FUN!!!

Yeah right! In our dreams!...



We just couldn't be arsed!