Ryan Kelly and Neil Byrne's Acoustic By Candlelight Tour - 5-10-12, Buffalo, NY

St. Patrick’s Day was almost two months ago, but the other night, I felt like I celebrated it again when Ryan Kelly and Neil Byrne brought their Acoustic By Candlelight Tour to the Shannon Pub in Buffalo, NY. I consider myself a pretty ardent Celtic Thunder fan, but it’s been a year and a half since I saw the lads in concert for the second time, and so when I heard that Ryan and Neil would be appearing together so close to us, I was thrilled. Ryan is the first member of the group I really latched onto, while Neil has consistently impressed me with his outstanding musicianship. I knew that they would make a wonderful duo, and I relished the thought of seeing them perform together in such an intimate setting.

Mom and Dad were up for it, so we ordered the tickets. I figured that since it was such a small venue, the chances of their selling out quickly were good. Thus, I didn’t want to wait to see if my brother could join us, but I wanted to check if he would be able to sit with us if he decided to come along later, so I e-mailed the pub and asked. I’m glad I did because they told me to reserve a table, which I wouldn’t have thought to do. As it was, I was one of the first to do so, and we wound up at the nine-seat table up against the stage. I couldn’t have been more than ten feet away throughout the concert.

We arrived about 7:15 for an 8:00 show, so we settled in and talked to our six tablemates, most of whom were charter fans who had been to well over a dozen concerts. It was fun to listen to their stories while enjoying the ambiance and trying some of the pub’s “world-famous” potato chowder, which I will attest was delicious. The décor was grand as well, particularly the array of Guinness signs that peppered the wall at the back of the stage and the framed sheet music in the hallway. Around 7:45, the lights dimmed and the wait staff, who were friendly and attentive, came around to light the little candles decorating the tables so that the concert would live up to the “candlelight” claim.

Just a little after 8, Ryan and Neil materialized, striding onto the stage in blue jeans and button-up shirts with no fanfare but the applause that went up when we realized they had emerged. What a difference from the high production of a Celtic Thunder concert! I witnessed that from the front row in 2010 and believe me, it is impressive, but it felt so much more personal to be sitting a few feet away and giggling as Ryan and Neil tinkered with the microphones for 15 minutes. At first there was just breathless silence, but after a couple of “Test, one-twos,” Ryan broke the tension with, “You’re all very quiet. Talk amongst yourselves!” So the buzz of conversation continued, albeit at a lower hum than before.

The concert began with a duet on a song I’d never heard before, but most of the songs were familiar. The only other one I’m not sure if I’ve heard before was Carrickfergus, which Ryan identified as his favorite traditional Irish tune. Rock and Roll Kids only rang a bell because the promotional video for the tour featured that song, a nostalgic ode to bygone days that reminds me of Crocodile Rock, only mellower and more wistful. Ryan explained that it had won the Eurovision Song Contest in the 1990s and was now the unofficial theme song of the tour, and it was a definite harmonic highlight.

A Celtic Thunder concert is streamlined and tightly choreographed, and nobody ever says much beyond a quick greeting at the beginning and a farewell at the end. That was far from the case here, as Neil and especially Ryan were quite chatty between songs, bantering with each other and the audience in a very casual, light-hearted, off-the-cuff fashion. Neil discussed the rather daunting experience of two Irish guys driving up America’s East Coast for the first time, acknowledging that Irish roundabouts are just as intimidating to American drivers as opposite-side driving was to them. Ryan’s description of New York was particularly entertaining. “Now, I know they say New York City is really unfriendly, but I don’t know what they’re talking about. When we were driving through there, everyone kept beeping their horns and shouting at us. We got a grand welcome!”

Neil and Ryan each did only one song from his solo album. Neil’s was the peppy Sadie Jones and I, a cheerful tune on which he and his dad collaborated and for which he created one of the most charming music videos I’ve ever seen. It’s my favorite of his solo songs so far, and it was fun to see Ryan chiming in with the tambourine. Ryan’s was Broken Things, which Neil began to introduce before amusingly deferring to Ryan, who said that many people had told him how deeply moved they’d been by this song about a broken individual finding someone to pick up the shattered pieces of his or her life. That was the first of his solo demos I heard in 2009, and it was a wonderfully poignant moment.

The two of them switched off between solos and duets, though most solos included some vocal and/or instrumental back-up from the other. At first, the audience was very quiet. I mouthed the words to most of the songs but didn’t want to annoy anybody by actually singing along; while Ryan had given us leave to be as participatory as we wanted, everyone seemed to be feeling a bit shy. At one point toward the end of the first set, however, Ryan specifically encouraged the audience to sing along, and after that, we did so on almost every number. It felt very much like being at a little folk club in the 1960s, and it warmed my Simon and Garfunkel-loving heart when they chose to conclude the show with an Everly Brothers medley (All I Have to Do Is Dream and Bye Bye Love). These two have only known each other about five years, but the bond of friendship felt just as firm, and the musical compatibility was unmistakable.

More than half the songs of the night were from the Celtic Thunder catalog, which was nice because they were so familiar to most of the audience, though the sense of excitement was greater when they did something off that beaten path, particularly if it was a popular song like California Dreamin’, which Neil led, with Ryan doing the echoes. Brown-eyed girl that I am, I was tickled when the first set ended with that lively Van Morrison hit, a rather natural follow-up to Ryan’s earlier solo of Moondance. I also thrilled to the opening chords of The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, even though it turned out to be I Wish I Was Back Home in Derry, a protest song with the same tune that I don’t know too well. There were actually some visitors from Derry near the front of the audience, and after the song ended, Ryan said, “I hope you don’t wish you were back home now. Or not right this minute, anyway!”

Ryan dipped into his Celtic Thunder catalog with two songs famously covered by Irish balladeer Christy Moore, one of his musical heroes. Black Is the Colour was in the first set, Ride On in the second; both times, he noted that his acoustic rendition would be much more like what he’d grown up listening to rather than the adrenaline-pumping arrangements from Celtic Thunder. I particularly cracked up when he vowed before Ride On, “There’s no jumping off of rocks or giving people mean glares. This is a friendly version.” I’ve always found that glare pretty silly…

Ryan also sang Every Breath You Take after explaining that he used to cover this song a lot with Emergency Exit, a duo he’d been a part of during his early days of working the pub circuit. Of the name, he confided, “My bandmate came up with it. He said it’s perfect because wherever we go, we’ll see our name up in lights!” While most of Ryan’s solos - aside from the wonderfully raucous Bad Bad Leroy Brown - were mellower in this venue, Neil still cranked up the angst a bit for a riveting rendition of Past the Point of Rescue.

One of the most touching moments was when Neil sang Noreen, the Phil Coulter song originally written for the wedding of Liam Neeson and Natasha Richardson. The lyrics, added after her death, speak of the pain of separation, though in the case of the song, it is geographical distance keeping them apart. This was the first ballad everyone joined in on, and the effect was quite lovely. A similarly harmonic group experience occurred in the second half of the show when we accompanied Ryan and Neil on their duet of Hallelujah, which Dad declared his favorite version of the ubiquitous Leonard Cohen song yet.

Of course, there’s nothing like a raucous group song to get the crowd going at a Celtic Thunder concert, so Ryan and Neil pulled out some of those as well. Galway Girl and Whiskey and the Jar were tons of fun, but the most entertaining numbers had them imitating George. In Raggle Taggle Gypsy, Neil mimicked George’s deep voice for the verse about the lord searching for his vanished wife, earning a laugh from us and a head-ruffle from Ryan. Even funnier was when they did 500 Miles, normally a George solo, and flubbed the second verse, prompting Ryan to introduce the next song with, “And now we’re going to sing a song we know the words to!”

His introduction to Seven Drunken Nights was a hoot as he talked about how one of the goals of Celtic Thunder was to dispel certain myths about the Irish, such as that they’re a bunch of drunks… and then the most popular song on their last tour was this ribald drinking song. “Oh, well,” he said. “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em!” And he and Neil switched off verses, with Ryan echoing George’s dramatically rolled “r” on the word “Friday” and incorporating his name into the lyrics, which threw him off as he headed into the chorus, which just added to the relaxed feel of the evening in general and the rowdy tone of the song in particular. His intro to I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For was similarly funny, as he claimed that he and Neil had written the song together in the 90s and Bono had stolen it from them and then Celtic Thunder producer Sharon Browne had stolen it from him so they were taking it back. This was the last song before the encore, and it made for a hearty closing number.

While I was fortunate to be able to snag such excellent seats – and pleasantly shocked when the server led us to our table – everyone was within a couple hundred feet of the stage, so there really were no bad seats. Being at tables instead of in rows of seats as we would be in a concert hall made it easier for people to talk to each other before the concert and during the generous intermission, when we were invited to make a run for the restrooms or to head up to the merchandise table to buy one of the tour’s classy posters or the lads’ solo albums. This was also a good time to go up and sign the bedsheet that they are using as a souvenir of their first tour together.

After the concert ended, most of the people in the audience got up to have Ryan and Neil sign things and get photos with them. We chatted with another fan on the way to the table, and then we spoke to Ryan and Neil for a few minutes. Neil commented on the photo of him that I’d brought, a shot of him on a bike in his garb from the Sadie Jones video. “Now there’s a blast from the past!” he remarked. As he signed the liner notes of his album, In Time, I mentioned to Ryan how much I loved The Village That They Call the Moy, his tender tribute to his hometown, and he turned to Neil in dismay and said, “We forgot to do the Moy song!” Gee, if only I’d shouted out a request… He also said that he’d noticed us singing along with a lot of the songs. If they bring the tour to Erie, you can bet I’ll be singing along with the Moy song then!

Before we headed out, I got a photo with them, which I was very happy about since, though I’d met Ryan once and Neil twice previously, photographic documentation of that fact eluded me. While I love the Celtic Thunder concerts, I have to say that this was probably the coolest of the three concerts I’ve seen with them. We got to see them with their guard down just being a couple of ordinary guys who happen to have extraordinary musical talent.

In addition to the warmly complementary vocals, the guitar playing was wonderful, especially from Neil, who really knows how to make that instrument sing and at one point impeccably imitated a mandolin. Ryan, meanwhile, surprised me with his jaunty tin-whistle and bouncy tambourine. It was a stripped-down, intimate experience complete with technical difficulties, awkward pauses and last-minute set list changes announced by a “secret code” between the lads involving eyebrows, nods and a wee bit of mind-reading. These guys are really attuned to each other and to their audience. If you love them as a part of Celtic Thunder, you won’t want to miss out on the opportunity for some grade A craic with two superlative Irish musicians.