MacMaster, Leahy and family bring energy to Seacliff Park

Well over 2,000 music fans descended upon Leamington’s Seacliff Park on Saturday, July 29 as Natalie MacMaster and Donnell Leahy and family put on a show to remember.

The Sunset Amphitheatre was home to a couple of firsts for the popular East Coast music duo and their family.

Their oldest daughter, Mary Frances Leahy, opened the show with

some fantastic fiddling, piano playing and dancing, backed by the MacMaster-Leahy band.

This was the first time Mary Frances has opened for her parents and the crowd was appreciative of her enormous talent.

The 17-year-old wowed those in attendance and seemed right at home on the big stage.

“I’d like to thank my parents for closing for me tonight,” she joked, which drew big applause

from the crowd and an acknowledgment from her famous parents once they took the stage.

The other first for the family occurred midway through Natalie and Donnell’s set when they brought all seven of their children out on the stage to sing, dance and play fiddle.

The youngest Leahy — Maria — then whispered in her father’s ear that she wanted to sing a song. Without hesitation,

Donnell introduced the five-year-old, who came to centre stage and performed her rendition of Singin’ In The Rain, accompanied on piano by Mary Frances. The audience erupted in applause as she finished up.

The talent of the children was on display throughout the night with all of the kids joining in on fiddle and doing some precisely timed step dancing, including 16-year-old son Michael, who also played guitar and accordion with the band.

Natalie, who had come down with a case of laryngitis, took the microphone and expressed her appreciation for Leamington.

“The kids were so excited to come back to the place with the big builtin pool,” she said, as she pointed toward Lake Erie. She gave credit to John Moran, Michelle Fortier and the entire Bank Theatre organization for the work they put in to make

everything “just right.” They were fresh off a performance the night before in Fredericton, New Brunswick, but that didn’t slow them down as most of the performances were very up-tempo.

Natalie and Donnell and their band put on an energetic show for the folks on the hill, who were up dancing and clapping and the inclusion of the entire family brought a definite down-home feeling to the Sunset stage.