The headline comes from an ill-spent youth watching American musicals screened in the Erne Cinema in Ballyshannon, and the inevitable "Variety" magazine reviews. Maybe it wasn't such a waste of time. Now, fifty or sixty years later, "boffo" is an apt description to apply to the show staged by "country music diva" Shania Twain in Kilkenny in July.

Somehow "wowed" and "winning the hearts of her audience" don't cut it.

The Sudbury songbird, in black spangled cat suit, was the newest addition to the fabled cats of Kilkenny. And her Canadian blarney, "You're the best, loudest, and most fun audience ever", was lapped up by her-what else?--"adoring fans".

In Ireland Shania connected, "and then some," as Americans say.

And, as they say in Donegal, "a good night was had by all".

That "The Pretenders" were on the same bill made it a "lollapalooza".

Sorry about that.

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