Loreena McKennitt -- An ancient muse -- Tour in 2007

Loreena McKennitt - An ancient muse
Tour in 2007

After the release in November 2006 of An Ancient Muse, Loreena embarked on a tour through Europa and Northern America in the Spring and Fall of 2007. Since both the album and the concerts were a great success, Loreena started a Live in concert tour in the Summer of 2008. Tour dates were listed on the Performances page on the official website; see also this list at my site.

During the Spring 2007 tour I have been to two of Loreena's concerts in Belgium: on 4 April 2007 in Brussels and on 6 April 2007 in Antwerp; the latter concert was added to the tour schedule after the Brussels concert was sold out very quickly after it was announced (as happened with most of the concerts in Europe). If possible I will, of course, also go to a concert of the Live in Concert 2008 tour.

On this page:

Spring 2007 Belgium concerts -- comments
After the show of 4 April 2007 in Brussels
Set list & musicians (Spring 2007)

Spring 2007 Belgium concerts -- comments

In short I can only say that the concerts were really wonderful!

It was a joy to go to the concerts, to hear and see Loreena perform the songs. She managed to create a wonderful atmosphere, which absorbs you completely: you know there are other people in the audience, but you do not realise this when you are engulfed in the music. And the musicians accompanying Loreena gave a great performance too, supporting the songs wonderfully, and they seemed to really enjoy doing it.

The stage is set ...

Loreena started off with a wonderful She Moved Through The Fair: a very good start of the concert, immediately setting the mood. I was particularly pleased with Penelope's Song and Beneath A Phrygian Sky, my two favourites of "An Ancient Muse". And I was very pleased to hear The Highwayman -- this sounded just great! -- and The Lady Of Shalott, the song that first introduced me to Loreena's music, back in November 1994.

There are two little things that I did not find so pleasing. The bass of, in particular, the drums were a bit too loud, too present, but perhaps the bass is difficult to control in a concert hall. And at some points the electric guitar of Brian Hughes was too loud, too much at the foreground. In particular that was the case in Bonny Swans, which by the way has never been my favourite song (also on the album the guitar sounds are too loud).

But these did not spoil the show at all: I really enjoyed the concerts very much, and they will remain a wonderful experience and memory for times to come. And I do hope that Loreena will come back to Europe soon, so that I can go again and be swept away into a wonderful world of music and singing.

See also the review in the newspaper De Morgen of the Brussels concert, with which I fully agree.

About taking photographs
Loreena prefers that people do not take photographs during her concerts. This is partly because it disturbs others in the audience, but mostly because it is not proper to take photos of people without their permission and in our "digital age" with digital photos and the Internet, such photos easily start living a life of their own. This is why you see here only a few photos from the stage taken before the start of the concerts.
See also Loreena's full explanation.

After the show of 4 April 2007 in Brussels

After the show we stayed behind and got a chance to meet with Loreena. I had took chance to give her a little present to thank her for all her music and songs, because the mean a lot to me. It was really nice to be able to talk to Loreena! There was not much time to talk, of course: there were other fans waiting for a talk and an autograph.
It was also great to meet Karen Shook, who has been working for Loreena already for many years in the London office of Quinlan Road Ltd.

Karen Shook and me

Loreena, Karen and me

Loreena and me

Set list & musicians (Spring 2007)

The following table lists the songs performed (as far as I can remember) at the two concerts I have been to, with links to the individual lyrics (if the song has lyrics) and to the original (studio) albums of the songs. The two concerts started at about 20:15 and ended nearly two hours later.

The programme booklet of the concert has Set 1 as it listed below. Set 2, however, was different from the programme booklet: that gives between Santiago and Kecharitomene two songs, namely Bonny Portmore and Beneath a Phrygian sky.

Set 1	Set 2
She moved through the fair from: Elemental The gates of Istanbul from: An ancient muse The mummers' dance from: The book of secrets Penelope's song from: An ancient muse Marco Polo from: The book of secrets The highwayman from: The book of secrets Dante's prayer from: The visit The bonny swans from: The mask and mirror Caravanserai from: An ancient muse	The mystic's dream from: The mask and mirror Santiago from: The mask and mirror Kecharitomene from: An ancient muse Beneath a Phrygian sky from: An ancient muse The Lady of Shalott from: The visit The old ways from: The visit Never-ending road (Amhrán Duit) from: An ancient muse Encore Huron 'beltane' fire dance from: Parallel dreams Cymbeline from: The visit

The following is a list of the musicians as mentioned in the programme booklet of the concerts. Links of the musicians names lead to their website, as mentioned in that booklet.

Loreena McKennitt		Vocals, Accordion, Harp, Piano
Tal Bergman		Drums and Percussion
Ben Grossman		Hurdy Gurdy and Percussion
Brian Hughes		Electric and Accoustic Guitars, Oud, Celtic Bouzouki
Tim Landers		Accoustic and Electric Bass
Caroline Lavelle		Cello
Rick Lazar		Percussion
Hugh Marsh		Violin
Donald Quan		Viola, Keyboards, Tabla, Accordion
Sokratis Sinopoulos		Lyra, Greek Lute

<=== An Ancient Muse: tour page / tour dates / album page

<=== The Loreena McKennitt main page / CD index / lyrics index

Jos van Geffen -- Home | Site Map | Contact Me