Plug in a pair of rabbit ears to your TV and you’ll be able to tune into three blocks of PBS member stations, plus former PBS affiliate and keepers of the Huell Howser kingdom KCET. Once you filter out all of the Armenian, Korean and Spanish language stations, PBS essentially becomes 75% of the Los Angeles area English channel lineup. That’s a lot of California’s Gold—as if you could ever have too much.
I’m not complaining; public television can be an amazing cultural and educational tool. But then, sandwiched in between reruns of The Lawrence Welk Show and Things That Aren’t Here Anymore, there’s Celtic Thunder.
The public television mainstays are performing at the Orpheum this weekend, and here’s what I can tell you about them off the top of my head: A group of five or six strapping Irish lads sings traditional jigs and contemporary pop songs. One minute they’re buttoned up in three-piece suits and strumming along to Simon and Garfunkel, the next they’re triumphantly strutting out on stage in kilts. The set pieces define cultural authenticity, from a giant Celtic cross to an astroturf knoll. Sometimes they’re singing together, sometimes solo to flaunt their individual flair: there’s the pretty one, the pre-pubescent one, the old one, the bad boy—who literally comes on stage at one point and sings, “They say that I’m a bad boy.”
This is where I try to insist that I don’t actually watch Celtic Thunder. See, with so few channels, it’s nearly impossible to not watch them. There have been weekends where different Celtic Thunder specials play on two stations at once. I’ll come across the show, make a few half-baked quips and change the station, only to land on it again after cycling through the compact channel lineup, rinse and repeat. It’s a minute here, a minute there, but at this point, I’ve probably seen a solid chunk, albeit in piecemeal, of their repertoire.
So why do I keep coming back? Maybe it’s the crowd. No, no, it’s definitely the crowd. During ballads, the camera will cut to a vulnerable woman with tears just streaming down her face. But then the pace picks up, the boys come back out in kilts, hair perfectly coiffed, and, with a flash of those doey eyes, a sea of menopausal women instantly melts into their seats. It’s the Magic Mike of public television.
But maybe it’s actual talent that I keep tuning in for, the steadfast harmonies and magnetic lilt in the group’s singing voices. As much as I'd like to say I'd attend a show only ironically, I can see myself getting sincerely swept up in the showmanship, the weepy ballads and the rapturous applause as one of the boys strikes a power stance. How could I sit for a two-and-a-half-hour performance when I've never watched more than five minutes at a time? Perhaps it’s the swell of strings and gentle pluck of a harp. It’s possibly even genuine affection—I was floored when I found out that one of the group's members had suddenly passed away. And then, maybe it’s just those really, really pretty eyes.
Celtic Thunder performs at the Orpheum Theatre on February 27 as part of the "Very Best Of Celtic Thunder Tour." Maybe I’ll be there.