iTunes Exclusive Episode Riverdance 20th Anniversary

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My name is Rob I am the executive producer of the Clubhouse Podcast and my head does not
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By the way this is iTunes exclusive 362 for those of you playing the home game.
But I'm not alone for this particular juncture or journey or whatever you want to call it.
That's how we roll.
You're going to meet across the desk as he tends to do from time to time as Mike co-host.
And a man he's a little twinkle toes thing happening back in the day.
He is chatting.
Welcome sir.
Thanks for that.
To his left is the official fact checker of this show.
And a man that whose feet tap every time he walks.
You may know him as fond don go but his mama name him Don Ford I'm going to call him Don
Ford.
Welcome sir.
They do more than tap.
They can a stinker.
I blame you for this.
Was that?
That wasn't even the right nationality.
And I'm half Irish and half knucklehead.
That's fair.
Rounding out the dance is the lady of the house and someone who has no idea what's going
on right now.
She is general.
Welcome friend.
Hello everyone and I'm used to not knowing what's going on around here.
All of us are.
That is kind of the sad part of it.
I actually envy you right now.
Whatever we do one of these things it is to review something and this is no exception.
We're going to the stage because it is the 20th anniversary of a little thing called
River Dan.
But we're starting to sell things.
Yes sir.
We got thanks city and everybody at 18 team back and also the wind spear opera house.
Such a fan of them for letting us come check out quality stage productions.
Absolutely.
And then we get to tell you guys about them so you can spend your entertainment dollar
wisely.
20 years dude.
It's hard to believe.
I'm not old.
I'm not old.
I'm not old enough for it to be 20 years.
Since the inception of River Dan.
Well.
This is the 20th anniversary tour sir.
I know they call it that but I'm going with it.
The concept of River Dan is been around a couple of years before that.
That's why I thought it was kind of strange that they called it this.
They want to call it 20 years on my account 20 years.
And now Michael flatly not in it anymore but he is still the predominant choreographer.
The Lord of Dan.
The Lord of Dan.
The Lord of the Dan.
Yeah.
That got kind of ugly kind of early.
It premiered February 9th 1995 at the 20th or double probably probably I'm thinking maybe
this particular tour has been touring for 20 years.
Well, they've been celebrating the 20th anniversary.
It's a 20th anniversary.
Yeah.
That's what I'm going with.
That's what I was like.
Either I can't count or they can't count.
And it's actually like on the 21st year.
So it is actually the anniversary which you're you're such a tickler on.
No, he's right.
He's right.
It's the 20th anniversary because it's the 21st year.
It's kind of like the whole 25th anniversary of WrestleMania when it really was and it
was just WrestleMania 25.
He's right.
Yes.
Thank you.
Because I'm a year old.
You know how I am with that.
That's still a couple of years off though.
Hey, again, this is what they're doing and I'm rolling with.
Well, 95, 15 and then the 16th is the 20th anniversary so maybe they're in that season
of the finishing up the season because of the two years.
We got that two year.
This is a riveting.
We got that two year left.
I think we're here.
And none of us have math degree.
Yeah, it's kind of this is the quality you can expect from this show on a consistent basis.
That's all I'm saying.
So if you don't know River Dance is first of all, welcome back from the cave.
This is it's just a really big dance show like that's the only way I can describe it.
Because you can't just say it's about Irish dance.
It's predominantly about Irish dance, but it's about a different, a lot of different styles
of dance that are brought together with the Irish style of dance kind of as it's common
that's the core.
That's the core of the core.
It goes into acts that run about 45 minutes to an hour piece with a 15 minute, with
they call it an interval that this particular iteration does.
I think the original one, one about three.
Oh, good mercy.
Yeah.
We'd still be there.
And the only thing I've really known about River Dance over the years has, has a pop culture
reference, if you will.
And the funny thing about that is that he was barely attached to this production that
long.
Yeah.
By the time he's, he's the one that's known for it.
He is, but ironically, he's probably more known for his production that he did after
that.
Because I think by night.
Was that when it was just Michael flatly Lord of the Dance, right?
Like, I think by 96, he was already moved, it already moved on, 96 or 97, he'd already
moved on to Lord of the Dance because he started but it's with the producers.
That's a good thing that this is a family show, so let's go over the principle dancers currently
involved in this.
We have a Maggie Darlington, Amy May Dolan, Gianna Petrichik, Kieran Hardeman, Jason O'Neal
and Callum Spencer.
And then you have a troop around them.
That's probably 17, 18 people deep.
In the live band, that's on stage for a change, which is kind of nice.
And not only on stage, but on stage and visible the whole time.
Yes.
Not in a pit on stage and they interact.
Now the first act is predominantly Irish dance for the most part.
The second act is where it gets kind of international because you've got an American tap sequence.
You've got a Russian troop that comes through.
You have a Flamenco segment.
I really liked this.
I did too.
You know, I was like, I didn't know what to really expect going in because I knew enough
about it to be dangerous.
My bar was kind of low I do have to, I wasn't exactly fired up about this because it doesn't
sell itself really well on television.
No, it really does.
But you can buy DVDs and you can buy CDs of the music involved and all that good stuff.
But it really doesn't do it justice until you see it live now.
You know, it's kind of like the way we saw Cavalya.
Yes.
We didn't know much about that going in when we did.
I feel like I knew more about River Dance than you about that.
Only because it had been around so long.
Yeah.
You're like, Oh, great.
A bunch of horses run around.
This is going to be amazing.
And wow.
It blew your mind.
And this was great too.
I really enjoyed this.
The crowd got into it.
Oh, absolutely.
It's one of the things.
Especially when I called during the dance off.
That's one of the things that I say in my written review currently located at www.thecluphousepodcast.com.
That's our website.
Is talking about looking around us when we were sitting in the crowd.
And I saw people that I was kind of like,
this person sure they know what they got into.
And as the thing went on, they got more into it.
And people that you wouldn't expect to enjoy something like this really, really did.
And that's a gauge of the success of this show.
It's everybody's involved.
Because there are entire sequences where it's just the band.
Who is amazing?
Yeah.
Big fan.
You know, soprano sax is involved.
So, you know, you got me involved.
Then you've got a young lady playing the fiddle that could mercy destroy that thing.
So your percussionist is Mark Alfred.
This guy's all over the planet on this thing.
He's amazing.
We have a, oh boy, I'm really going to mess this up.
Syllida Briscoe.
This is closest, I think I can come place to fiddle.
Emma Frampton on saxophone.
And Tara Howley is kind of their utility person because she plays four or five different
instruments.
Well, very, very well.
She plays those, Lillian pipes like that.
I mean, just incredibly done.
Wait, wait, wait, say that again.
Lillian pipes.
Is that what that thing was?
Yeah.
That, I mean, it's kind of like, I'm going to roll a pipe on steroids.
I'm going to roll with him on that.
Yeah.
That's a good, interesting word too.
But Lillian pipes, I'm going to roll with you on that.
She also plays the low whistle, the tin whistle, and the concertina.
The concertina thing actually is what impressed me most about her because at the pace they
play, the fact that she was holding note for note on a concertina, I mean, that's skill
brother.
And out of all the musicians, outside of maybe the drummer, she looked like she was the
one that was having the most fun with everything.
And that was something that friend of the show Patricia Nichols was my plus one for this.
She and I were talking and she was saying, like, they really are genuinely enjoying each
time.
And I'm like, that's the point.
You know, when you're in an ensemble of people and you're just out there in the thing,
if you're not having fun, you're not doing it right.
Yeah.
And they are all having a great time.
And your energy, you know, on stage feeds the energy of the crowd by, by leaps and
bumps.
Absolutely.
You don't seem very much, but you know that sound of them.
Oh, yeah.
Right.
They're in a big pipe family.
So I mean, a lot of times, but you're instead of blowing air into a deal, you're actually,
you've got something like a diaphragm up under your arm that you're, you're supplying
the air with.
And it's just everything was the choreography, just tight as a drum.
And it reminded me of the musical that we saw a couple of years ago that opened with
the huge tap number.
Was that 42nd Street?
Yes.
That just nobody, nobody was ever, and the way that's quickly as they move, I can't imagine
how long it takes somebody to get up to speed and something like that.
Yeah.
No, because that's a discipline.
Everybody was dead on in every way.
There was live singing in some of the, the numbers, which I thought was gorgeous,
very good.
Especially a couple of the Acapella numbers.
There's nothing about this.
I didn't like, but if I have to have a criticism, and maybe it's just because I'm as time
conscious as I am in the battery in my watch was dead, did the second half seem a little
longer than the first half?
Well, I don't think so.
I've not been personally.
It had more numbers per se, but for me, the first act felt longer because that first
act kind of dragged.
And the thing is, you're so used to second acts being shorter than the first, this
about equal, or maybe the first act was a little bit longer, but not much.
They probably did the halfway point on this thing.
If it was, it didn't feel it because the pace was definitely picked up in the second
act.
I mean, that thing just cooked.
I think once, once you had your, your three ladies in the drummer having their little face
off with each other, that's when the show really came into its own.
Up until that point, it was kind of, it was so stern and stone-faced and almost militaristic.
It was all about precision and intensity.
You know, that was the, they're just staring the audience right in the eyes and not cracking
a smile.
And to me, that got a little bit, you know, I don't know if that bothered me so much.
I really can't tell the difference, so because they were smiling more than this.
Yeah, it's, there's a, there's a change in mood and I know that's, I'm sure it's intentional.
I'm almost positive about my mind.
This is how serious we are about our craft, but when they started to loosen up and have
fun with it, that's whenever I woke up because it was kind of starting to lose me a little
bit when the, when those first handful of numbers, honestly, the first flamingo number
felt completely out of place.
The second one made sense because at that point, we're talking about the melting pot of
America.
But everything was all iris chiega iris chiega iris chiega, flamingo iris chiega iris chiega
iris chiega.
What?
Who invited them to the party?
It just didn't make any sense to me.
It was still, I mean, you know, it is what it is, but it just seemed, it just felt like
it was ill placed.
One thing I like just how they came transition to a big brawl out dance where the crowds
jumping and cheering and everybody's excited.
And then they could move it to another dance.
It's just one or two people kind of just, I'm going to do a smooth dance here.
I don't want to be fast as I can, get the beat going kind of thing.
And then the next scene, which I loved was Tara Holloway, I mean, Howley, who played
the pipes there, that solo she did in the dark there, basically, that's towards the end.
It sounded like, sounded like the opening credits of Braveheart, you know, exactly.
And so if the Braveheart sound to you, those are the literally pipes for the people
out there.
But I like how it could be something where you just sit back and enjoy something and relax
and really get into that, you know, mind frame of, I'm going somewhere with this music,
and then it gets jumping, then it gets fast, and then it gets a little bit slower, then
it's a solo.
So there's a whole array, but they transition the style of dance very well between
the different types of dances they do.
And beautifully presented on every angle, from the lighting to the, to the technology,
to just the, the costuming to the overall presentation, I thought, what's top notch?
Absolutely.
All right.
If I have a good shout out, it's those people on the stage playing those instruments.
Oh, absolutely.
Yeah.
I mean, it's well known about me and my viola, but that lady with that violin, I did see
a couple of small mistakes she made in the second part just barely, but doing a whole
act like that.
She was fast as the guy, I have to give it to her.
She's great.
Yeah.
So I mean, that general many questions from you on the steel.
No.
All right.
That, that Russian duo almost, that kind of scared me for a second.
Oh, the, the, the hopping and the swinging, yeah, they, they, that she couldn't quite slow
down enough to stop fully.
They kind of lost their balance.
Yeah.
Things could have gotten real weird there real quick, but also a great act.
There was a, there were six of them, very, very cool.
And that, that drum solo, what the heck was that thing?
It was cool as what it was.
I mean, he sounded like he was on a full tom set.
Yeah.
And it was just one drum.
I've never seen anything like that.
It was like a tambourine on steroids.
That was amazing what he was getting out of that thing.
That's like, I look, I kind of looked over you like, I want to tell your drummer to grab
one of those.
Because that would definitely beef the sound up.
You could go play some drummers.
My drummer's awesome.
All right, anything before we get to the final analysis?
I have no real faults.
All right, the way we do the final analysis on the show, we're not going to give you thumbs
up, thumbs down, we're not going to give you letter grades, numbers, tap shoots, anything
like that.
The way we're going to do this, because this is a stage production, it's a little bit
different from the way we do film.
We're still going to ask up to two questions.
Question number one is, will we see this production again?
I think there's no them we're done here.
If the answer is yes, then the follow up question is, where would you pay to sit, because
the closer you get the higher the ticket costs are, and by the way, we had amazing seats
for this.
Oh.
So that would show the level of interest.
Don, let's start with you.
Would you see River Dance's 20th anniversary over again?
Definitely.
Where you want to sit.
It gets to get into the theater.
The best ticket available that you can get.
Oh, oh, oh.
I love to see this again.
I believe I would.
Where would you want to sit?
But I am going to, from this day forward at the windspirer, refer to the, as you always
call the coveted, I'm going to call it the River Dance position.
Okay.
The River Dance position.
Wow.
You're a name in it.
Yeah.
Because that was a mid-drink when you said that.
Wow.
The perspective there was so spectacular.
I mean, what, and that's what I liked about this production is there's not a bad seat.
No.
There's, there's not, there's no place for you to sit like, oh, I can't see that.
Like, you can see everything from anywhere you are the way this age is designed.
I agree.
I will see, I would love to see this again, getting a building, just getting a building.
Yeah.
That's my favorite production so far this year, honestly.
At the windspirer Opera House, it's a real quick run.
It only goes through Sunday, March 25th.
Wow.
It is.
River Dance is 20th anniversary.
For this whole thing?
Yes, sir.
Got things in it.
Everybody at the ATT pack in the windspirer.
I cannot thank them enough for everything they do for us.
We're so happy we have such great partnerships with our vendors that let us see stuff.
As quickly as possible so we can tell you about them and you can make the best associations
you can with your entertainment dollar.
That being said, let's do the plugs.
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Brittany Palmer can narrate this thing.
Just live narration on stage.
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