Maura began with To be the One, right into Spinning Wheel, and A Far Cry from Here. Then she treated us with her Irish wit, charm and banter, then Poetic Justice, No Place to Hide, Sally Gardens, with a guest spot from the audience Joannie Madden on tin whistle and fun and laughter. Joannie seems like a real hot sketch and the warmth between her and MO was obvious. MO made clear that the ONLY reason she did the Irish Cruise Ship thingy, was due to Joannie, that she “hated cruises!” (Funny thing, Laura and I feel the same way.) Joannie actually heckled Maura a few times, and was told “Shut Up Joannie”, by Maura, more than once.

Maura didn’t want to talk about the issue of her continuing to do live shows; wasn’t spoken of and that made me happy on a lot of levels. Leave it at that.

Next came Shades of Gloria, Blue Train (love that song!) Summerfly (old standby) Love you in the Middle, Feet of a Dancer (love that one too--always think of my daughters), a capella treats, I Know my Love and then The Weakness in Me ( the great Joan Armatrading song---MO told a great story how she sang that song in a folk club in Ireland ions ago--when she tried to accompany herself on the guitar and was awful, she sang that song as a gift to the crowd so they would not have to listen to her awful guitar playing, fingers on a chalkboard, she said, he he)). A special treat came next, the great Western Highway and trading a verse and doing backup vocals was Jane Monheit--a local jazz-pop-standard singer who had obvious affection for MO and who has an exquisite voice herself---they did this song with NO rehearsal, amazing---it sounded great. Lovely Galileo, the smoky The Blessing. I think I missed at least one of the main set. Then a bunch of shout outs for songs and MO retorted, “the next song we will do will be her choice, because “it is her show”, and then she ended up doing the request perchance anyway, Nancy Griffith’s great Trouble in the Fields, and finishing with the classic “folk” song from Van Morrison (Laura’s fav!) Crazy Love, and Maura did her growl for the man, on the words “Makes it righeous”. Van would be proud.

A fantastic show. Said a brief hello after the show, Maura was gracious and charming to us and the others who wanted to say hi. Reminisced about the great old shows at the Bottom Line and MO’s first ever B.B. King’s shortly after 9/11. I was there and her offering Danny Boy for the firefighters still brings chills to my spine. She even wanted to introduce us to Joannie, but it was late, we had a bit of a ride home on a school night, and my eyes were very tired, so we hit the road home and had great memories of a fine March night at B.B. KIng’s in NYC, having just heard the best singer in the world. Nice guests and surprises too!

By the way I can’t fail to mention how good John Mock and Don Johnson were, they were superb as always.

Glad you had a nice time and thanks for the report.

I am going to the show tomorrow. It is a four hour drive, but the hotel is only about $100 and it is worth it for me...BB Kings would have been nice,but so hard for me on a school night....

I am hoping she changes her mind a bit about the touring things...I know she cant do it forever, but maybe once in a blue moon.. A while back she did a tour with Mary Black, Sharon Shannon, etc. I hope those type of opportunities present themselves occassionally. One can dream.

In a strange coincidence, Joannie Madden's dad and my dad are both buried about 50 yards from each other...They are practically neighbors.. I guess I could tell her that if I ever met her. I also think she grew up in the town where I currently live...Maybe that would be more appropriate to tell her...LOL

Glad it was good...I will report back on my concert!

Sounds like a wonderful evening! Thanks for sharing, Bob!