Loreena McKennitt - Live in Paris and Toronto

 
This is a 2-CD set with songs recorded at the Salle Pleyel in Paris and Massey Hall in Toronto in April and May of 1998, and features 17 tracks.
The first CD is a full live version of Loreena's latest studio album The Book Of Secrets, the second CD contains songs from earlier albums. Links of the songs in the list below lead to the lyrics of that song on the respective album.
The set is packaged in a deluxe, custom made Herzog & Idex book-bound sleeve and is presently available exclusively from Quinlan Road

Contents

1. Prologue (4:22)
2. The Mummers' Dance (6:07)
3. Skellig (6:07)   --   lyrics differ slightly from "The Book..."
4. Marco Polo (5:15)
5. The Highwayman (10:19)
6. La Serenissima (5:09)
7. Night Ride Across The Caucasus (8:30)
8. Dante's Prayer (7:11)

1. The Mystic's Dream (6:29)
     -- from: The Mask And Mirror
2. Santiago (5:32)
     -- from: The Mask And Mirror
3. Bonny Portmore (3:50)
     -- from: The Visit
4. Between The Shadows (4:18)
     -- from: The Visit
5. The Lady Of Shalott (9:05)
     -- from: The Visit
6. The Bonny Swans (6:33)
     -- from: The Mask And Mirror
7. The Old Ways (5:03)
     -- from: The Visit
8. All Souls Night (4:15)
     -- from: The Visit
9. Cymbeline (6:27)
     -- from: The Visit

 
Live in Paris and Toronto - Quinlan Road Ltd, 1999 (QRCD 108)
This CD is not for sale in stores and is exclusively available from Quinlan Road.

 
JPEG version of cover (23 kb)       GIF version of cover (26 kb)

Some remarks

The recordings on this double CD were made during concerts from Loreena's spring 1998 The Book Of Secrets tour, which also took her to Utrecht, the city in The Netherlands where I live. But alas, at that time I was living in Scotland and thus missed the chance to see and hear Loreena live.
But I sure hope to be able to see and hear Loreena sing live myself one day!!

Loreena writes in the CD-booklet:

"Road signs to Rome, a turnoff to Munich, a traffic jam en route to Hamburg, a fuelling station on the highway out of Barcelona, Easter in Brussels, buses and trucks making their way through the night. Flights to Montreal, New York or Los Angeles, the lights of airports, highways, runways ... the exotic and eclectic blend of experiences, from the sublime to the ridiculous, from the touching to the infuriating, the invigorating to the exhausting, one's motivation for touring - indee, for travelling at all - is constantly being challenged and re-examined from different perspectives.

"At the end of the day, the sentiment that rises above all others is the desire to connect with, and share with, those who have found a place for my music in their lives. And whenever possible amidst the limitations of touring, to learn a little more about them. These interactions with a living, breathing audience, rich in their multifaceted, spontaneous and un[predictable dimensions, will always more than compensate for the routine exercises of promotion and career development. Each of the experiences are distinct and unique, and are the essence of what sustains us when road-weariness sets in.

"A travelling party of 30 people or so on The Book Of Secrets Tour of spring 1998, we became a movable hamlet of some of the best musicians and crew in their fields. It was a privilege to work with them all, and I am deeply appreciative of what they brought, individually and collectively, to the whole.

"And in so far we have taken the view that this recording should be document of that live experience, as captured in Paris and Toronto during a three-month tour, we have chosen not to cosmetically alter the exxences of the performances themselves, however seductively studio technology beckons in this direction. For the most part, then, this is simply the sound of us doing what we did. Here's to the music and the people."

The spring 1998 tour took Loreena to:

 

Roma, Firenze, Torino, Genova, Bologna, Milano, Mestre, Trieste, Frankfurt, Berlin, Dresden, Stuttgart, Münster, Düsseldorf, Hamburg, Dürnberg, München, Amsterdam, Utrecht, Brussels, Zaragoza, Malaga, Murcia, Barcelona, Paris, Toronto, Montréal, New Yrok, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Vancouver.

The CD-booklet furthermore contains a list of the touring party, and others that co-operated in the tour and the recoding, as well as some good pictures of the tour and the musicians:

 

Loreena McKennitt -- vocals, piano, keyboards, harp, accordion

Nigel Eaton -- hurdy-gurdy

Brian Hughes -- guitars, oud, bouzouki

Caroline Lavelle -- cello

Rick Lazar -- percussion

Hugh Marsh -- violin

Rob Piltch -- guitars, keyboards

Donals Quan -- keyboards

Danny Thompson -- acoustic bass

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<=== The main music and lyrics page

 
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created: 29 August 1999
last modified: 9 May 2024