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Monday 5th August 2002
The Irish Tenors at the Fleet Boston Pavillion, Saturday Night
Irish Tenors take a sentimental Journey
By Brett Milano
Music Review


Listening to the Irish Tenors can make you so homesick for Ireland, you might even forget that you've never actually been there.

Sentimental songs were the rule when these three tenors - Anthony Kearns, Finbar Wright and Ronan Tynan hit the Fleet Boston Pavilion Saturday with a full orchestra and a nearly full house. Widely known for their PBS TV specials the groups strategy is simple. They treat favorite Irish songs with the loving care usually given to classical pieces.

One of the highlights, for instance, was "Whiskey In the Jar" - a folk song that's been recorded by everyone from the Dubliners toMetallica but it is usually treated as a pub sing-along. On Saturday, the tenors gave it some operatic flourishes that few pub singers - and nobody in Metallica - could manage.

Unlike the more famous Three Tenors, the members of the Irish trio are relatively young and still at their vocal peak. Though they took separate turns on-stage, the show was more about the songs than the personalities. The singers ceremoniously left the stage between nearly every number, and the formality was dropped only once when they introduced their voice teacher, who came in from Dublin to celebrate her 75th birthday. They presented her with roses and a chorus of "Happy Birthday.

Most of the material fell into two categories, tear-jerkers and flag wavers (and not just Irish ones. The first set closed with "God Bless America". The second with "Battle Hymn of the Republic") They even did the venerable "Danny Boy" for an encore, and one wished at times that their song choices were a bit less obvious. Most successful were the songs dealing with the Irish experience in America. "Streets of New York" told a resonant story of an immigrant who honours his family by becoming a Broklyn policeman.

One of the night's highlights was also the biggest stretch: the Elvis Presley hit "Love Me Tender" done in full group harmony. The sound was so sweet you could almost believe that Elvis was Irish.

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