Loreena Mckennitt was absolutely brilliant at the Royal Albert Hall last night. I have been a fan of her and her music for a quarter of a century now, and last night I got to see her and her ten other supremely talented musicians up close and personal.

She played all my favourites, from the new album Lost Souls and also from her older material, including many of my “witchy/pagan” favourites, such as All Soul’s Night, Pagan Trees (newly titled Ages Past, Ages Hence), the Mystic’s Dream and more. For the encore, she played my absolute most favourite song in the world: “Tango to Evora”, starting with just her on her Troubadour harp and Ana Alcaide on nyckelharpa, and then slowly all other ten musicians joined in, until it was just a beautiful wall of music and enchantment that took my breath away. Rousing favourites were, of course, Santiago and the mysterious and alluring Marco Polo. And ending with Dante’s Prayer, and the vocals trailing off into a whisper… “Please remember me.”

I can’t tell you how happy I am to have seen this and heard these wonderful musicians playing together in the incredible setting of the Royal Albert Hall. Overwhelmed. www.loreenamckennitt.com