Aled Jones at Motherwell Concert Hall
Mar 18, 2015 15:42:35 GMT
andrewjw, brianr2, and 2 more like this
Post by Martin on Mar 18, 2015 15:42:35 GMT
Yes, I was dragged along last night to see the darling of Songs of Praise, the angelic Aled Jones.
The setting was the luxurious Motherwell Concert Hall, sat deep within the bowels of the 1960's nightmare of conrcrete and roughcasting that is the Civic Centre
We arrived early-ish, and managed to get a drink at the bar. Surprisingly, we had little competition for elbow room at said drinks counter, and the reason became clear.
The concert was not sold out. Far from it, in fact. In the large hall set aside for the evening performance, just under half of it had seating put out and arranged, and within that seating, almost a quarter was unoccupied. Embarassingly, that meant a crowd of only around 200 or so, at the most. Something Aled commented on, quite a few times during the performance...
The support act was Julia Clarke, a 21-year old soprano from Belfast, so we got our fix of Irish tunes for St Patrick's Day.
She had a pleasant voice and demeanour, but it was only her fourth show supporting The Maestro, and it showed in her nerves and lack of confidence.
After ripping through five songs in quick order (including Carrickfergus, something from The Lion King and another from the Sound of Music), Julia left and the star of the show immediately made an appearance.
I was very pleasantly surprised by Aled Jones. He's a funny guy, and seems genuinely nice. The (mainly) older women in the crowd seemed a bit overexcited, and started shouting things out at him. My missus wasn't any better, wolf-whistling him throughout
He didn't seem to mind being heckled, but you could tell he wasn't used to it. It was all done affectionately, though.
He blasted through two short-ish sets, with a mix of Welsh (the best of his stuff), Scottish, traditional, hymns and even pop songs. He's got a good voice, and an even better stage presence as he kept everyone entertained between numbers with his chat.
He constantly made reference to the 'small but perfectly formed' crowd, and cracked jokes about hosting TV with Lorraine Kelly and hosting SoP.
The high point was when he mentioned 'Walking in the Air', and the audience cheered. He sighed, said 'you had to clap there, didn't you?', and then apologised, but said he couldn't do the song as he didn;t have his tight pants on.
Then he paused, turned round and said 'hang on... I HAVE got my tight pants on' before walking to the piano and starting to play the afore-mentioned theme from The Snowman.
He then began singing it in a hilarious falsetto before thinking better after two lines and stopping.
It was a brilliant moment.
After the show, he did a signing, and the missus took her place in the cue to meet the legend. I took the photo, and Aled had to walk past me to get to the signing table. He said 'hello' as he passed, but I was too busy trying to figure out how to work the camera on Shona's phone to reply
I eventually got it working...
Overall, a much better night than I had expected, and Aled's a very nice fella (not as tall as I thought, though...).
The setting was the luxurious Motherwell Concert Hall, sat deep within the bowels of the 1960's nightmare of conrcrete and roughcasting that is the Civic Centre
We arrived early-ish, and managed to get a drink at the bar. Surprisingly, we had little competition for elbow room at said drinks counter, and the reason became clear.
The concert was not sold out. Far from it, in fact. In the large hall set aside for the evening performance, just under half of it had seating put out and arranged, and within that seating, almost a quarter was unoccupied. Embarassingly, that meant a crowd of only around 200 or so, at the most. Something Aled commented on, quite a few times during the performance...
The support act was Julia Clarke, a 21-year old soprano from Belfast, so we got our fix of Irish tunes for St Patrick's Day.
She had a pleasant voice and demeanour, but it was only her fourth show supporting The Maestro, and it showed in her nerves and lack of confidence.
After ripping through five songs in quick order (including Carrickfergus, something from The Lion King and another from the Sound of Music), Julia left and the star of the show immediately made an appearance.
I was very pleasantly surprised by Aled Jones. He's a funny guy, and seems genuinely nice. The (mainly) older women in the crowd seemed a bit overexcited, and started shouting things out at him. My missus wasn't any better, wolf-whistling him throughout
He didn't seem to mind being heckled, but you could tell he wasn't used to it. It was all done affectionately, though.
He blasted through two short-ish sets, with a mix of Welsh (the best of his stuff), Scottish, traditional, hymns and even pop songs. He's got a good voice, and an even better stage presence as he kept everyone entertained between numbers with his chat.
He constantly made reference to the 'small but perfectly formed' crowd, and cracked jokes about hosting TV with Lorraine Kelly and hosting SoP.
The high point was when he mentioned 'Walking in the Air', and the audience cheered. He sighed, said 'you had to clap there, didn't you?', and then apologised, but said he couldn't do the song as he didn;t have his tight pants on.
Then he paused, turned round and said 'hang on... I HAVE got my tight pants on' before walking to the piano and starting to play the afore-mentioned theme from The Snowman.
He then began singing it in a hilarious falsetto before thinking better after two lines and stopping.
It was a brilliant moment.
After the show, he did a signing, and the missus took her place in the cue to meet the legend. I took the photo, and Aled had to walk past me to get to the signing table. He said 'hello' as he passed, but I was too busy trying to figure out how to work the camera on Shona's phone to reply
I eventually got it working...
Overall, a much better night than I had expected, and Aled's a very nice fella (not as tall as I thought, though...).
Jo whoever he is.
