All language subtitles for 2011

Coming back to The Point in Dublin

is something that we all knew in our
hearts we were getting excited about.

Nobody wanted to talk about it, but it
was an undercurrent within our company.

Everybody could feel it, everybody
wanted to come home and test the mettle.

So, bringing it back to The Point,
where it all started,

was a remarkable, remarkable high,

a great achievement,
and it was also a huge challenge.

Starting Lord of the Dance there
in '96 was a huge, huge time in my life.

It was so emotionally charged
and torn

and there was so much going on.

If you can imagine
the whole world around me

telling me it couldn't be done.

I really felt as if I was pushing
an elephant uphill,

that I had laid out something before me

that was seemingly impossible
in the eyes of the rest of the world.

I just didn't see that.

I just couldn't understand
their thinking.

In my mind it was a done deal.

This was going to be way bigger
than what I created before,

against all the odds.

And Lord of the Dance became huge
and did arenas all over the world.

So, the most important lesson is that

you can't listen to all the naysayers.
They're everywhere.

And the more people that told me
it couldn't be done,

the closer I know that I am to success.

If you just follow what's in your heart

and you're willing to work hard for it,
then nothing's impossible.

I suppose in my own heart I had
something to prove going back in there,

back into the lions' den,
some 14 and a half years later,

and still getting them on their feet.

That's a moment I'll be proud of
for the rest of my life.

In the new Lord of the Dance shows,

some of the bigger tours
that we'd been on

have had 1 2 semi-trucks,
five buses and a Gulfstream.

And we've got 200,000 watts
of lighting up there now,

including the ACLs, which are
literally aircraft landing lights,

which is unheard of in a show like ours.

But we've got, you know,
an art form that's ancient,

that's brought up to date
and into the future

with really rock'n'roll
lighting and sound,

the greatest costumes
and theatrical movements,

the stage, the sound effects, the
special effects that we put in there.

All this brings it
to a whole new dimension.

It travels like a rock'n'roll show.
In in eight hours, out in four hours.

It has to.
We've got to be gone to the next city

because our venues
are 12 to 18000 people.

So we go on to each city,
we do one night and we're gone.

The next morning we're in a new city
and we have to do it all over again.

Every last dollar
that comes on that show

is spent on that stage
for the audience to see.

It's not wasted on nonsense.

The preparation is done months
in advance, years in advance.

Sometimes
I'll take a 30-second piece of the show

and work on it for eight hours.

I've got sometimes 50 dancers
on stage,

all dancing as fast
as they possibly can,

hitting the stage several times a second
at exactly the same time.

That's not something you can prepare for
on the day or the week before,

or even the month before.
It takes months of rehearsal.

I think that's one of the things
that makes our show so special.

It's unique. There is no other show
in the world like that.

Remember when you're out there, we
didn't come this far to finish second,

and we're not going to tonight, OK?

There can't be a great army
without a great general

and there can't be a great general
without a great army.

Half an hour before the show,

15 minutes, ten minutes, five minutes,
you can feel the energy of the audience.

If you close your eyes,
you could literally feel

the energy of your audience waiting,
the anticipation.

It's hard for people to understand
the electricity that's in that room

when you've got 15 or 18 000 people
waiting for the show to start.

It's a remarkable experience
to soak up that energy,

and for somebody like me who's a
performer, waiting backstage to go on,

I feel that. It lifts me.

I am so proud. It's like conquering
the world, one city at a time,

with the greatest dance troupe
of all time.

We can't wait for that show to start.

We can't wait for the lights to go down,
for the drums to start.

My heart starts beating faster
backstage as I'm waiting,

and every dancer's the same.

There's a camaraderie there.

Coming back 14 years, five months
and three days later

to The Point, where it all started,

it doesn't get any better than that.

This is going to be the greatest show
of my life, tonight.