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Concert update: 60 AC/DC tix released

They may already be gone by now, but about 60 tickets for tonight's AC/DC show went on sale a little while ago. They were production holds in the first 10 rows and they're selling for $93.50 plus fees.

 A spokeswoman for the Don Haskins Center, where tonight's show starts at 8, said they are all paperless tickets, meaning you have to order them at 800.745.3000 or online at ticketmaster.com, then bring the credit card with which you bought them, plus an ID and all the people in your party (there's a four-ticket limit) to the arena. 

You'll be issued a paper receipt after your card is scanned with a special hand-held device.

Concert review: Celtic Woman's 'Isle' hopelessly rote

Celtic Woman started out as a made-for-TV group with four women with lovely voices and another who dances and fiddles up a storm.

The formula hasn't varied much in their five years of existence, and with good reason. The group routinely puts up big numbers with its easy-on-the-ears, easy-on-the-eyes brand of Celtic-flavored adult contemporary music, selling out venues like the Plaza Theatre, where they played to a nearly full house Saturday night, and topping the world music charts on a regular basis.

It's sort of an if-it-ain't-broke-don't-fix-it kind of thing. The problem with that, though, at least in terms of Saturday's show, part of their current "Isle of Hope" tour, is just how rote and devoid of personality their performance was. Loosely built around the theme of the mass emigration of hard-luck Irish to the United States, "Isle of Hope" contains several inspiring songs, both traditional and contemporary.

Sure, there are hints of their individual characters. Certainly elfin Mairead Nesbitt is a little blond firebrand, a dancing, fiddle-playing, crowd-pleasing ball of energy whose extroverted antics on tunes such as "The Coast of Galicia" and "Granualle's Dance" are in direct contrast to the four demure singers. Her tasteful version of "Shenandoah" showed she could reign it in, too.

Of the singers, honey-voiced soprano Chloe Agnew was the most animated, and the only one who addressed the crowd, other than a quick thank you, and that wasn't until near the end of the show. The others — Lisa Kelly, Lynn Hilary and Alex Sharpe — all possess beautiful voices, but were stuck doing some pretty corny choreography (swaying their arms side to side got old fast) and either weren't interested in or allowed to chat up the crowd like they should have.

Saturday's show was occasionally engaging. Their lovely, a cappella rendition of the standard "Danny Boy" was delightfully angelic. Other group numbers, including their signature version of Josh Groban's "You Raise Me Up," and first-act closer "Mo Ghile Moar" are packed with plenty of emotive wallop.

But the performance was too by the numbers, too colorless given the high degree of talent (the women were backed by a percussion-heavy five-piece band and six backup singers) and the rich selection of traditional Irish and contemporary pop songs, including Sting's "Fields of Gold" and Rod Stewart's "Have I Told You Lately," from which they have to choose. 

A song like "O, America!," written especially for this tour and designed to arouse our patriotic hearts, should have packed a punch. Instead, it had a more muted quality.

The show, like the group, is the brainchild of keyboardist and music director David Downes. He obviously knows what he's doing because it's been very successful. The staging, from the lighting to the ladies' elegant dresses, is top notch. The talent is also of a high level.

But I wish he'd let the cast let their hair down a little more, treat it more like a concert with some spontaneity than a Celtic version of "American Idol," where everything is so safe and scripted that there's no character, no going with the moment. A show built around so many emotional songs shouldn't be devoid of emotion itself.

Concert update: Koz, Tejano Legends V, 'Riverdance,' 'Boheme,' Winans and more

Finally! Tickets for Dave Koz's Dec. 17 "Smooth Jazz Christmas" tour stop at the Plaza go on sale at 10 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 14.

They range from $45 on the low end to $105 on the high end. You can get 'em at the Plaza box, Ticketmaster outlets, ticketmaster.com and 800.745.3000.

Koz, who routinely sells out the historic theater, is marking the 12th anniversary of his Christmas tour by reuniting the original cast of singer Brenda Russell (who may debut a new Christmas song she's written, Koz tells me), pianist David Benoit (who'll do a "Peanuts" Christmas medley), trumpeter Ric Braun and guitarist Peter White.

El Paso's the only Texas stop on the tour, promoter Connie Paul notes.

In other concert and entertainment news:

•How about a little Tejano music for New Year's Eve? Tejano Legends V — with Jimmy Edward, Roger Velasquez and the Latin Legends and our own River City Band — should get the dance floor hopping at the Coliseum at 8 p.m. Dec. 31. GA tickets are $35. Tables of six are going for $350 and include party favors and a bottle of the bubbly. Tickets are on sale now at the box office, Ticketmaster, ticketmaster.com and 800.745.3000.

•Tickets go on sale at 10 a.m. Nov. 20 for the farewell tour of "Riverdance," coming to the Plaza for five shows Feb. 12-14. Prices are $35, $55 and $65, plus service fees. Some presales started on Wednesday. Check ticketmaster.com for details. It's the 15th anniversary of the breakthrough blend of Irish traditional song-and-dance, which spurred an explosion of interest in Celtic music and choreography. The El Paso shows — at 8 p.m. Feb. 12, 2 and 8 p.m. Feb. 13 and 2 and 7 p.m. Feb. 14 — actually fall in its 16th and final year.

•El Paso Opera is cutting prices for its final performance of "La Vie de La Boheme," its dinner theater version of the Puccini opera. The show, at 5 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 15 at the Doubletree Hotel, is $85 for most people, but $40 for UTEP students and $55 for military and UTEP faculty and staff.

The company also has rearranged its performance schedule for this weekend, though you won't find that info on their Web site, epopera.org, at least at this writing. The Sotoa Building and, apparently, Ardovino's are out, according to their Facebook page. Instead, the "Boheme" highlights show will be performed at 7 p.m. Nov. 13 and 14 at El Pisto Food & Drink.

Frankly, the relatively high price of tickets and constant changes in the performance schedule can be confusing and make it difficult for both opera fans and that new audience they're trying to cultivate. Hopefully they'll work out those kinks if they do something like this again. It's a cool idea and I hope it becomes an annual thing.

•Gospel singer Cece Winans will perform at a black-tie 60th birthday gala for 1st Lady Johnson at 7 p.m. Monday, Nov. 16 at the Camino Real Hotel. Tickets are $100, on sale at the Destiny Family Christian Center, 9615 Dyer. Details: 755.7744.

•El Paso Playhouse accidentally listed the wrong opening date for its next production, the children's musical "Honk!" It's opening Friday, Nov. 20 at the playhouse, 2501 Montana, not Nov. 13 as originally listed in season announcements and brochures (and its Web site). Kate Keyser directs. Tickets are $10 and $12. It runs through Dec. 12, but could add another weekend. Details: 532.1317, elpasoplayhouse.com.

•The El Paso-made "Border Lords II: Dark Secrets" makes its New Mexico debut with screenings at 8 and 10 p.m. Nov. 21 at the Fountain Theatre in Mesilla. Tickets are $5. To secure some, email elysianent@yahoo.com, shadered@aol.com or nedludd76@hotmail.com. Want to check out some trailers? Go to myspace.com/borderlordsmovie.

•Local documentary filmmaker and all-around nice guy Jackson Polk is having a release party for his latest opus, "Ghost Stories of El Paso, Vol. 2" at 2 p.m. Nov. 21 at Monteleone's Restaurant, 3023 Gateway West. Psychic Diana Calamia and director Polk will be on hand to sign copies. the DVD will sell for $22, plus tax. Info: elpasogold.com.

•Bill Blaziek, who runs El Paso's Convention & Visitors Bureau, said 9,600 people attended the free "Movies in the Canyon" series last month at McKelligon Canyon, assuring the first-time series will return earlier next year. "We'll probably start right after 'Viva' next year," he says, referring to "Viva! El Paso," which concludes its two-month run in August. It'll run through October.

Concert review: Reveling in John Tesh's geekiness

John Tesh doesn't try to be cool or hip or trendy. If anything, he revels in his geekiness.

His spirited performance Wednesday — Veterans Day — before just over 1,000 people at UTEP's Magoffin Auditorium was a celebration of all that's geeky about him. That's not a knock.

He rapped, badly, about fathers of teenage daughters, of which he is one. He tried a few hip-hop dance moves in another portion of the 2-hour show, a nod (and a wink) to Breeze Lee, the professional popper and locker (and Tesh's daughter's dance teacher) who showed off his rubbery moves on a few songs.

He also sang the ballad "Give Me Forever" in honor of his wife of 17 years, actress Connie Sellecca, and let's just say as a singer he's a good pianist.

At 57 Tesh doesn't seem to have any pretensions about being perceived as anything but what he is, a tall (6' 6") former "Entertainment Tonight" host who has carved out a pretty nice niche for himself as an instrumental pop pianist, Christian music artist and host of his own syndicated radio show, "The John Tesh Radio Show: Music and Intelligence for Your Life," which airs locally at KISS-FM (93.1) from 7 p.m. to midnight.

The show he put on during his first El Paso appearance was really a mix of all three aspects of his career today, with a little humor mixed in. It started with the random bits of "intelligence" that flashed across the video screen before he took the stage. There were frequent announcements that the show would start in 3 minutes, then 20 minutes. Web master Gib Gerard performed a slightly stand-uppish warmup, which amounted to a jokey plug for Tesh's Web site, tesh.com. The audience was awarded with a free T-shirt everytime someone mentioned the site during the show.

Tesh often interrupted his 14-song set to talk to the crowd about parenting, wax poetic about his wife (who persuaded him to re-embrace his faith and quit "ET" in 1996 after 10 years), explain Tim Lander's fretless bass or make an appeal to audience members to start their personal ministry, a kind of pay-it-forward notion that encourages community volunteerism. 

Turning radio host for a moment, he noted that people who volunteer at least 5 hours a week can reduce their blood pressure and add seven years to their lives. Ten hours of volunteering, he said, had the equivalent effect of 5mg of Valium.

To dramatize the point, he brought up his truck driver, Sellecca's brother Vinny Sellecchia, and his wife, Kathy, who spent some of the day visiting with veterans and running the bingo game at the local VA hospital.

The funniest segment was an extended bit in which Tesh gave a long-winded explanation for how he wrote "Roundball Rock," the popular and long-running NBA theme that NBC used while his Web master typed several disparaging, but funny, messages on the video screen behind him. "I hate myself," he typed at one time, later knocking Tesh's backgrounder as being "a terrible story. Who wants to hear this?"

Tesh brought up a 12-year-old boy named John from the audience to dribble a basketball while the lanky keyboardist, who lurched over his grand piano like Schroeder from "Peanuts," led the tight three-piece band down the court.

As entertaining and inspiring as some of those moments were, the musical ones were more rewarding and too few in number. Gone are the days of Tesh's lavish concerts. His run as a PBS darling ground to a halt a few years ago. So his touring band is smaller than past ensembles, with pianist Tesh backed by the angular guitar work of Gannin Arnold, Nate Wood's crisp drumming and Lander's liquid bass lines, augmented by dancer Lee and singer Chelsea Ward, whose got a pretty voice suitable for Christian AC music that occasionally was drowned out by the band.

Many of the songs performed Wednesday appear on his recent "Greatest Hits Live in Concert Vol. 1." Opener "Barcelona" hinted at the various ethnic flourishes that have colored his secular music, while the reflective "Heart of the Sunrise" represented the pretty, romantic piano music that marked the earlier part of his career. He joined on dual vocals for "Trading My Sorrow," a rockin' good Christian song that was countered by Ward's version of "I Can Only Imagine," the oft-covered MercyMe song that's pretty hard to mess up.

Tesh is just geeky enough to pull such seemingly disparate elements into a two-hour entertainment, and resourceful enough to make it work.

Fungus amongus: the 'Shroom winners are

We got nearly 30 comments, begs, appeals and all-around thoughtful remarks for our Infected Mushroom ticket and CD giveaway. I'm impressed. One guy wrote in from Ohio; another from Colombia! That's some serious 'Shroom fandom.

But we can only give so much away. Two winners get copies of their new "Legend of Black Shawarma" CD. One gets tickets to the show Nov. 13 at Club 101.

The winners are:

•Tom Moy (CD)

•Kendahl Sissons (CD)

•Kristina Proctor (tickets)

Concert update: Maher tix on sale Saturday; Murder FM CD release Nov. 11

Tickets for comedian and TV host Bill Maher's Jan. 28 show at the Plaza Theatre range from $45 to $75. They will go on sale at 10 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 14. You can get them at the box office, Ticketmaster outlets, ticketmaster.com and 800.745.3000.

Maher, host of HBO's "Real Time," will go on at 8 p.m. No opener has been announced — yet.

In other concert news, just a reminder that Norman Matthew's new band Murder FM is showing off its new, Beau Hill-produced album, "Anthems for the Used," with a CD release party at 8 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 11 at Club 101.

Norman reports that the video for "As Beautiful As You Are" is Top 10 on Europe's Scuzz TV.

It's an all-ages show.  Doors open at 7.

Get infected by the 'Shroom (for free)

OK, people, listen up! We've got a pair of tickets to Israeli trance group Infected Mushroom's Nov. 13 show at Club 101. And we've got two copies of their new CD, "Legend of the Black Shawarma."

And we're just itching to give them away.

All you've got to do is post a comment below about why you like their music and why it's so important you win one of the items above.

You've got until noon Wednesday, Nov. 11. So get writing!

Movie update: Plaza holiday film sked confirmed

I don't know why I didn't get this directly from them, but the El Paso Community Foundation ran a full-page ad in Sunday's El Paso Inc. listing the dates and times for all four of its holiday movie offerings.

They're bringing back Will Ferrell's "Elf" at 2 p.m. Dec. 5, followed by "It's a Wonderful Life" at 7:45 p.m. that day.

"A Christmas Story" returns at 2 p.m. Dec. 6, with "White Christmas" at 6:30 that night.

All movies will be shown at the Plaza Theatre. Tickets are $5 at the box office, Ticketmaster outlets, ticketmaster.com and 800.745.3000.

The screenings will coincide with the tree lighting in San Jacinto Plaza and the downtown holiday parade.

Concert review: Russell mixes it up in lively, funny, poignant Cruces show

It's been 24 hours since I saw Tom Russell's third annual concert to Las Cruces' Rio Grande Theater and I'm still thinking about just how funny, poignant and good it was.

Russell is a folk singer and songwriter who's very well known and respected in his circles, numbering the likes of Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Ian Tyson and Gretchen Peters among his friends and collaborators. He's not so-well known in his adopted hometown of El Paso, where he rarely performs. He's been making this pilgrimage to Cruces in part because it's a college town and guys like him are more appreciated there, in part because he stands to get a bigger crowd.

But that crowd can be a bit sedate, as was it was Saturday, forcing Russell out of his original game plan, which was to play virtually everything on his acclaimed new album "Blood and Candle Smoke." It's getting some of the best reviews of his career. 

He did play more than half the dozen new songs, mostly in the 2-hour show's livelier first half, opening the show with four straight songs from the new album, sprinkling others in later.

He relied on older material and even a few requests in the more subdued second half, saying after the show that he changed things up because he didn't think the crowd was as into the new stuff.

Maybe they just didn't know it. Artists like Russell don't, for all their repute, enjoy the kind of radio play and publicity commensurate with their talent, exposure that would help get the music out there. I'd wager most of the people in the audience of about 300 hadn't even heard the new album going in.

But the new stuff holds up very well live, especially with all that tasteful six-string embroidery guitarist Thad Beckman, whom Russell first saw at Ardovino's Desert Crossing within the past year, brought to the table. "Guadalupe" is the most emotionally resonant of the bunch, turning Russell's visit to the Mexico City shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe into a moving account of faith and faithlessness.

"Finding You," a beautiful ballad inspired by his lovely wife Nadine, "a miracle of miracles, the one that saved my life."

He had a bit of fun with "Criminology," a song about an experience he he had teaching the subject in Niger. When Russell, who sings it in a higher, more nasal voice than normal, had a little trouble getting the crowd to sing the word "criminology" on the chorus, he cracked: "Weird sing-along, huh?"

It was. When he didn't quite get the reaction for which he had hoped, Russell punctuated his audience call-response with a some well-timed jokes. "You are getting sleepy," he teased the mild crowd as it tepidly sang along, "read for your wallet, throw them onstage."

He closed out the first set on a humorous note with "Who's Gonna Build Your Wall?," a tongue-in-cheek paean to the irony of having illegal nationals build the very wall designed to keep them out.

The second act was more low-key but even more funny as he made cracks about his early days with Cowboy music, which he traced back to the "Urban Cowboy scare" of the early '80s. One song later, he asked if friend and supporter Robert Ardovino was in the house, but no one responded. "OK, screw him," joked Russell, who has been known to hang out at Ardovino's (and who has a painting hanging there).

He did a few more new songs in the second set before digging into older material, including "Don't Look Down," about his experiences working at a carnival in Puerto Rico.

With older songs like "Veterans Day" and "Navajo Rug," Ian Tyson's affecting look at a love gone MIA, Russell seemed to strike a chord with a crowd obviously more familiar with those songs and others, like the Pancho Villa-inspired "Tonight We Ride" and "California Snow," which focuses the immigration issue on one Border Patrol agent's conflicted conscience.

In between and even during songs, the smart alecky Russell regaled the audience with stories ranging from the Rolling Stones' 2006 show at the Sun Bowl (inspired by a request to play Marty Robbins' "El Paso," which he doesn't know) to the joys of irrigating his nearly three acres of farm land in Canutillo. When he returned for an encore, he joked it was courtesy of "cheapencores.com."

And he closed out with "Gallo del Cielo," a song about a heroic rooster that Russell and Beckman hadn't played on this tour, which started a month ago. But that's what you do when an audience isn't responding as enthusiastically to your new songs. 

It helped that the performance was lively, punctuated by Beckman's colorful guitar work and Russell's dry, sometimes charmingly goofy wit.

It's too bad he felt the need to shift gears. There's so much good material from the new album that he could have devoted an entire act to it. But he didn't and by delving into old songs he managed to get the crowd on its feet by show's end.

Concert review: EP Opera's 'Boheme' highlights are tasty fun

Want a little cream cheese with your Colline? Rodolfo with your riesling? Mixed greens with your Mimi?

Then by all means you have to check out what the El Paso Opera has cooked up for its current fall production, "Le Vie de La Boheme."

It's not opera exactly. It's dinner theater opera, a sort of "La Boheme" greatest hits with garlic and rosemary crusted chicken breast, at least that was the main course at Friday's performance at the elegant Lancer's Club East, where more shows are planned for 2 and 7 p.m. today, Nov. 7.

Inventive to say the least. Tasty? Yes, on a couple of counts.

You have to admit that it's a delicious concept, especially for the great unwashed like me, who's been to maybe one opera in his life. I'm not a fan of musical theater and I'm really not an opera buff by any means.

But you don't have to be to get a kick out of this, not with the main cast members singing on a small, two-foot stage square in the middle of the dance floor or supporting cast walking and singing amongst the diners. Hey, I got a free apple out of the deal!

"La Vie de La Boheme" was conceived by EPO artistic director David Grabarkewitz as light entertainment, something you can watch in a restaurant, as I did on Friday at Lancer's Club East. Opera purists may scoff, but schlubs like me should just eat up the cast's youthful energy and the show's high fun factor.

It's a three act show for a three-course meal. The first scene, which introduces some of the main characters from the Puccini opera and Henri Murger book upon which Grabarkewitz's adaptation is based, followed a subtle appetizer of smoked pastrami salmon and wild mushrooms with herbed cream cheese — served on spoons.

We meet the sensitive poet (natch) Rodolfo, sung in this English version by Wesley Morgan, who has the kind of sweet tenor that's so popular with crossover pop opera fans these days. He shares a cold apartment with Marcello, the painter, sung this night by Luis Orozco, a recent UTEP grad who not only has a muscular baritone, but stage presence to boot.

Rodolfo meets the sweet Mimi, played by Jennifer Valle, who has one of those sweet, soaring sopranos that can put a tear in your eye (but I'm told by someone who knows more about this than me was lacking a bit in the power department). They fall in love and that pretty much ends the first act.

The second — served over a sumptuous main course of garlic and rosemary crusted chicken breast on truffle oiled callepini with grilled zucchini — finds our merry bohos celebrating Christmas Eve in a restaurant when the gold-digging, fiery red dress-wearing Musetta makes her presence known — loudly.

UTEP's Sharon Kim plays the temptress, who jilted Marcello, only to take him back by scene's end. Kim has plenty of presence — that dress didn't hurt — but the soprano seemed a bit overmatched by the other cast members.

The third, dessert act combined a cabaret approach, where each of the cast members got to sing a song or aria — Valle's was the prettiest, baritone Christopher Dickerson (Colline) had the funniest song (about his rooster; many of the older folks in the crowd of nearly 50 didn't seem to appreciate it) and Morgan's was the loveliest.

It's a pretty clever way of taking opera to the people, especially on the amorphous Eastside of town, where there's no cultural center amongst all the urban sprawl. Director Grabarkewitz, charged with turning the financially lagging opera's fortunes around, is an idea guy who knows how to think outside the box.

He makes inventive use of the small space, with some cast members exiting stage right toward the bar, others walking through the dining room to the kitchen. He also makes you feel a part of it by filling the dining room with costumed extras in the second act.

One neat trick: he flip-flopped the cast and the extras (members of UTEP's Musical Theater choir) at the end of Act 2, as the main cast carries Musetta off on its shoulders and the student singers fill the stage.

There are some problems inherent in this approach. Sometime the sound was a bit off. Kinney's voice was hard to hear during his first appearance, though the problem was corrected. And even though this particular production was sung in English and I was able to follow along, sometimes it was hard to understand the words — I caught maybe 75 percent of what they were singing.

But Grabarkewitz keeps the action moving along quickly and the whole thing, meal and all, was over by about 9:30 Friday night (the show started half an hour late because the director got caught up in an accident-induced gridlock on I-10).

It's not cheap entertainment. The matinees run $58 and the evening shows are $74. But if you're looking for something fun, different, maybe something that takes you — purist or neophyte — out of your comfort zone, you might want to try it out. At least once.

 "La Vie de La Boheme" continues at 2 p.m. today (Italian, $58) and 7 p.m. today (English, $74) at Lancer's Club East; 5 p.m. Nov. 8 (Italian, $74) at Lancer's Club West; 7 p.m. Nov. 10 (English, $68) at El Pisto Food & Drink; 7 p.m. Nov. 11 (Italian, $74 at Lancer's Club West; 7 p.m. Nov. 12 (English, $68) at El Pisto Food & Drink; 7 p.m. Nov. 13 (Italian, $74) at the Sotoa Building, 500 W. Overland; 2 p.m. Nov. 14 (Italian, $58) at Ardovino's Desert Crossing; 7 p.m. Nov. 14 (English, $74) at the Sotoa Building; and 5 p.m. Nov. 15 (Italian, $85) at the DoubleTree Hotel (American Cancer Society benefit).