WHERE have all the die hard C & W fans gone? That must have been the question on the collective lips of the sixty or so people (at least a third of whom were on the Guest List) who attended what amounted to an unwarranted rehearsal gig. One would have thought that the woman who wrote The River and She's Every Woman for Garth Brooks would have generated enough grassroots (or even a smidgeon of crossover) interest to comfortably fill a reasonably small venue.
"It looks as though we're going to have some intimate moments here", observed a spirited Victoria Shaw. Some ironic moments, too, as she and her band performed for the chosen few. Songs like Forgiveness, All For The Sake Of Love and Too Busy Being In Love (a hit for Doug Stone) bore all the hallmarks of commerce driven, crossover country, too intrinsically weak to be termed good, but cute and book laden enough in their observations to ensure that middle ground country fans connected with their sentiments.
The most telling song in Shaw's brief and inevitably lack lustre set (in fairness, there was a singular absence of audience atmosphere and response) was the Harper Valley PTA themed A Day In The Life Of A Single Mother, a song that sounds as if it were written with Cher in mind.
Make of that what you will, but Victoria's never say die performance - perfect smile intact throughout - should have won her more friends than foes, such was her professionalism. Who'd be an aspiring C & W superstar playing Dublin on a cold Wednesday night?
