2 Vicar St Dublin Gigs re-scheduled from Christmas cancellations
| 20th April – 2 hours 8 mins | 21st April – 2 hours 13 mins |
| After the Deluge | After the Deluge |
| Matty | Go Move Shift |
| Natives | Matty |
| Missing You | Gortatagort |
| Dunnes Stores | Missing You |
| Folk Tale | Black is the Colour |
| Casey | Delirium Tremens |
| Farmer Michael Hayes | Magdalene Laundry |
| City of Chicago | Casey |
| Hattie Carroll | Where I Come From |
| Ruby Walsh | Viva La Quinta Brigada |
| Motherland | Ride On |
| Ordinary Man | Biko Drum |
| Beeswing | Easter Snow |
| Hiroshima | Dunnes Stores |
| Easter Snow | City of Chicago |
| Go Move Shift | Little Lightbox |
| North & South | Ordinary Man |
| Contender | Hattie Carroll |
| Two Island Swans | Companeros |
| Viva La Quinta Brigada | Voyage |
| Little Light Box | Joxer |
| Quiet Desperation | Smoke & Strong Whiskey |
| On the Mainland | Shovel |
| Back Home in Derry | Beeswing |
| Time Has Come | Lisdoonvarna |
| Joxer | No Time For Love |
| Ride On | |
| Fairytale of New York
Delirium Tremens |
The rescheduled Christmas gigs went very well. Again, regrets for any inconvenience caused but the poor auld Lungs were wracked with infection.
On Monday night we had MOXIE in. This young band of bowsies has been making great sounds this past while. I caught them in Whelans last year at The Liffeybanks Sessions. I like their sound, energy and dedication. Their next gig is in The Sugar Club, Dublin on Thursday May 21st. It promises to be a Hot Night on Leeson Street – Click HERE to watch Moxie video.
On Tuesday night in Vicar St. we had a visit from Johnny McEvoy whom I first heard sing way back in 1966 in Leeds. It was great to see him again, looking fit and still singing the songs. My erstwhile colleague Bill Whelan from Planxty (mark 4) also dropped in. We reminisced about our work together on Timedance (Bill composed the suite with Donal Lunny and Andy Irvine, I played Bodhrán) we recalled fun and capers as we travailed around Europe. The Planxty line up at that time was Liam O’Flynn, Andy Irvine, Donal Lunny, Bill Whelan, Nollaig Casey and myself. We recorded an album “Words and Music” and also performed the Timedance suite during the Eurovision Interval – when 600 million people around Europe got off the couch, put on the kettle and made a few sambos! Click HERE to watch Timedance YouTube.
Maurice Cassidy also came to the gig the other night. I first met Mossy in 1972 when Planxty did their first UK tour. We had just been signed to Polydor Records. Some executive put us out on the road with a band called Iguana. Maurice was the tour manager and it can’t have been an easy task. The gigs were utterly unsuitable and we were all disillusioned by the experience. We made it back to Dublin where Planxty soon regained a “head of steam”. 43 years later and Maurice is still a gig man. Thankfully, all us Planxty sailors are still making our own individual music. Others who played in various Planxty line-ups include Johnny Moynihan, Paul Brady, Matt Molloy, Noel Hill, Tony Linnane, and (I think) Arty McGlynn, John Kelly, Dolores Keane…
April 22nd
Declan Sinnott is in the UK to perform some gigs with Vickie Keating and promote his second solo album “Window on The World”. They will play a gig in Whelan’s of Dublin on Sunday May 31st. He has a great bunch of new songs. Click HERE to see video for Declan’s song “Time to gather in”.
I’m looking forward to re-joining the Trad Outfit in Loughrea, County Galway and Spanish Point in West Clare. We will play two concerts and also prepare for our Ulster Tour in June when we play Belfast, Derry, Enniskillen and Dungannon.
After that I will catch up again with Declan and we’ll head over to play Glastonbury on Friday June 26th when we will be joined by Jimmy Higgins and Vickie Keating. This is my 5th time to play Glastonbury since first playing there in the mid 80s.Over the years I’ve played before (and after) a huge diversity of musicians. Met quare hawks, thirsty ducks, hard chaws, high priests, dodgy dealers, hardy christians and cold cats there over the decades. I experienced the highs and lows associated with such mammoth events, got to hear Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, The Housemartins, James Brown, and Robert Cray. My abiding memory is playing a bowrawn solo on the main stage one Sunday afternoon in the mid 80s… When Jim Donohoe added Sub Bass to the Bowrawn the audience quadrupled in a matter of minutes. (I subsequently used this solo on the “Traveller” album in 1999) Farmer Michael Eavis’s best Jersey Herd looked up momentarily but soon returned to green pasture.
I have so many great Festival memories from across the decades – Sherkin Island with Norman King, Randall’s Island with the NYPD, Leeds with Moving Hearts, hearing Fairport Convention, Cambridge with Diz Dizley, Blairgowrie with The Marsden Rattlers and Jeannie Robertson… Krumlin nr Halifax with Elton John sharing Brandy as the heavens opened and the entire festival was washed down the mountain at Barkisland. The Tolpuddle Martyrs Festival with Red Ken in London. Watching Sting do an interview backstage at the London Fleadh was interesting. Chuck Berry at Ballisodare, Seamus Ennis at Lisdoonvarna, Rory at Macroom, Philo in Mullingar. Singing “A Pair of Brown Eyes” at Dranouter. Planxty at Lorient ……
The Lift arrives at the 70th floor this month … May 7th 1945 (VE Day), Nancy Power and Andy Moore made way for their first born. Andy was in The Irish Army; Nancy had been working in The Majestic Hotel in Tramore. I was born in Dublin. They brought me home to Newbridge where I lived until 1963. Andy, our beautiful Dad, died tragically in 1956, Nancy re-joined him in 1992 .She spoke of him lovingly every day in the interim. I am sometimes amazed that this journey continues and I’m always grateful to all those of you who share it. You create the space and the air in which the songs breathe. I am one of six all of whom, thankfully, live on The Island. Most of the family are involved in, or connected with, music in some way. Nancy instilled that in us while Andy, for the short time we knew him, could hold a tune and sing a song …. “I’ve got a lovely Bunch of Coconuts”
My Brother Luka Bloom has a new Band. They are called O’Sahara and I’m hoping to hear them at the Junefest in Newbridge, Co. Kildare. Click HERE to see the Junefest programme.
My sister, Anne Rynne, took up the guitar 4 years ago. After a life of singing “for the crack” she has buckled down to working at her music, the results are wonderful (keep it up Sis!)
May 1st
Writing this paragraph in The Armada Hotel, back again on The West Coast of Clare. Great fun last night in Spanish Point, the music was leppin, the songs reverberated, listeners from many quarters, soldiers home from The Leb, confectioners from the land of Toten Hosen, Emissaries from the land of parlez vous, one Miltown-Malbay resident extremely challenged by the bar being closed – the last of the thirsty ducks… There were good requests too, Butterfly, Brendan’s Voyage, Gortatagort, even Casey got a mention. My sister Anne was in the room, I could hear her voice singing gently along… when I sang of Barronstown, of Bridie, Frank and Nan I could sense her emotion as we remembered our roots…
Two great nights with The Trad Outfit in Loughrea and Spanish Point … good rehearsals and gigs as we look forward to June when we play Belfast, Derry, Dungannon and Enniskillen… our sets were;
| April 29th – Loughrea 2 hours 1 min | April 30th Spanish Point 2 hours 7 mins |
| Beeswing | Beeswing |
| Missing You | Missing You |
| Go Move Shift | Go Move Shift |
| Easter Snow | A Pair of Brown Eyes |
| Ordinary Man | Farmer Michael Hayes |
| Farmer Michael Hayes | Mountains of Pomeroy |
| A Pair of Brown Eyes | Where I Come From |
| Honda 50 | Honda 50 |
| January Man | Easter Snow |
| Mountains of Pomeroy | St Brendans Voyage & The Armada Reel |
| Where I Come From | Matty |
| Inagh Valley & Cooley’s Reels | Inagh Valley & Cooleys Reels |
| McIlhatton & Far From Home | Gortatagort |
| Nancy Spain | Shovel & Duke of Leinster |
| Joxer | Butterfly |
| Black is the Colour | Delirium Tremens |
| Motherland | Ride On |
| Lisdoonvarna & Richie Dwyers | Raggle Taggle & Whatever |
| Voyage | Cliffs of Dooneen |
| Shovel & Duke of Leinster | Lisdoonvarna & Richie Dwyers |
| Ride On | If I Get an Encore |
| Joxer |
It’s such a buzz to sit amongst “the music” again. Mairtín O’Connor and Cathal Hayden are players of the highest order. Both are accomplished and immersed in the Tradition of our Music. Seamie O’Dowd and Jimmy Higgins have spent their lives in the engine room of accompaniment. They are totally focused on where the tunes lead and how best to travel with them. All four have the added attraction (for me) of being songsters. Not all trad players have an antenna for songs. Similarly not all guitar players have a natural antenna for following Reels and Jigs. Personally I have always needed guidance on chord patterns when trying to accompany Irish Music. Seamie calls out chords for me in rehearsal just as Donal Lunny used to do in Planxty days. These past nights, listening to Cathal’s “ Mountains of Pomeroy”, to Mairtín’s “Inagh Valley”, I have been carried away to that special place where music takes many of us… I’ll be practicing my chords between now and our Northern Tour in June …
On Sunday we attended “The Night before Larry Got Stretched” – A monthly gathering of singers and listeners in the Cobblestone, Smithfield. As advised, we arrived early and got 2 good chairs. The room filled rapidly to full capacity and the singing began. Over the next 3 hours we heard (perhaps) 40 singers sing 40 songs. Fergus Russell kicked it off with a powerful version of Paddy Galvin’s “Where is our James Connolly”. The session was on. Singers young and old followed. Songs old and new, mainly unaccompanied got the greatest respect and attention. We met and spoke with many friends. The general consensus is that unaccompanied singing is enjoying a glorious revival amongst a new generation of singers and listeners. Songs of love, woe, laughter, bawdiness, subtlety, sneakiness, loyalty and betrayal. Song Sessions are on the rise – unpublicised, the listening continues to gather momentum.
Some New Dates for your consideration
The Groove Festival in Kilruddery, Co Wicklow – July 5th.
Waterford Woodlands Hotel – Fri July 10th
Claremorris Town Hall – Sat July 18th
Tralee Ballyroe Heights Hotel – Fri Aug 28th
Clifden Arts Festival – Fri Sept 25th
See you along the Way,
Christy
PS …
Click HERE to listen to Dave Lordan’s Interzone – a groundbreaking live arts cabaret show broadcast at 8pm on Monday nights on Garden County Radio… Click HERE for the Garden County Radio website
Click HERE to read a nice review of the Spanish Point gig by one of our Antipodean listeners, Bob Singer.