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Nick Morgan and crew
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Concert
Review by Nick Morgan |
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| CHRISTY
MOORE with DECLAN SINNOTT Barbican,
London, April 17th 2006 |
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| Declan
Sinnott (left) and Christy Moore (right) |
Well
it’s the Barbican, but not as we usually know
it. Few are the Guardian hugging high-brows or the
blue-rinsed patrons of the arts. In fact it’s
a bit more like a rugby match at Lansdowne Road
– glasses and bottles fill every available
surface, even lined up along the top of the men’s
urinals, which are also doing mighty service to
the bladders of the thirst quenched crowd. Of course
it’s a high day and bank holiday – our
first one of the year, and as historians will surmise,
it’s also an anniversary of some appropriate
note. But it’s principally a rare solo appearance
in London by Irish folk legend Christy
Moore, whom we were privileged to see
in the same venue last year performing with the
simply wonderful Planxty, accompanied tonight by
long-time collaborator and one time Horslips and
Moving Hearts guitarist, Declan
Sinnott.
Moore’s particular legend combines wild rock
and roll excess, a voice of remarkably fragile beauty,
sometime outstanding songwriting, a deep respect
for the traditional canon, an ability to make other
performers’ deeply personal songs his own,
humour, dark depression, and a commitment to a variety
of political causes, (starting at home with the
Irish Republican movement but moving to support
for the oppressed and victims of injustice around
the world) for whom he has become something of a
global voice, albeit always on his own terms. He’s
fiercely passionate, I would suspect surprisingly
vulnerable and self critical, has something of the
perfectionist about him, wears his heart on his
sleeve, and has a very short tolerance of audiences
who choose to participate unasked. “There
you are thinking, what a big moody old bollocks
that he is, not wanting us to clap” he chides
himself, having brought an over excited audience
to heel with a single menacing glance. In fact (Billy
Bragg please note) he doesn’t say much at
all during this song packed two and a quarter hours,
choosing to let his music do the talking, which
it does with considerable eloquence. |
| Now
if you weren’t there, rather than bother reading
this you could buy a copy of his latest double CD,
Live from Dublin 2006. Though remarkably only about
half of the twenty eight songs that we get are among
the thirty on that two disc set. That in itself
says something about the huge repertoire of material
that Moore has collected over the years. Quite how
he puts the set together I can’t imagine,
let alone understand how he remembers all the words
(“If I get the first line it’ll be ok”,
he tells us, “the first is the important one”). |
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| But
it has to be observed that by the time he’s
finished there aren’t many Irish or British
institutions that haven’t taken a good knocking
(he breaks into the Irish equivalent of a talking
blues in the middle of the apparently harmless ‘Don’t
forget your shovel if you want to go to work’
and turns the shovel into a Kalashnikov to spray
hot lead at leading politicians in both countries,
and Serge’s beloved Charles and Camilla) along
with the United States (you should listen, Serge,
to his version of Morrissey’s ‘America
you are not the world’, I think you would
enjoy it). He has a moving reflection on the recent
past in his own country, ‘Smoke and strong
whiskey’ (“It's Easter again, and we
cannot forget, our brothers and sisters and all
that was said, so practise your pipes, stand proud
in the wet, for the eyes of the world are upon you”).The
Church gets a beating up in Joni Mitchell’s
‘Magdalene Laundry’; wife beaters get
some of their own treatment in ‘A stitch in
time’; privilege, corrupt legal systems and
the Freemasons are the targets of Dylan’s
‘Hattie Carroll’, and Capitalism takes
a bit of a poke in ‘Ordinary Man’. And
a number of songs dwell on the not always easy experience
of the Irish Diaspora – in the USA (‘City
of Chicago’) and in London (‘Missing
you’), not that Moore seems to be unhappy
to be here. His version of Ewan McColl’s ‘Sweet
Thames flow softly’ exudes a deep affection
for the dear old Smoke. |
| And
these and other songs of commitment were mixed with
some heart achingly touching love songs, tales of
tragedy, and just plain nonsense. ‘North and
south of the river’ (co-written with Bono
and The Edge), ‘Song of the wandering Aengus’
(“music written by Judy Collins, Yates out
of Sligo wrote the words”), ‘Nancy Spain’
and Richard Thompson’s ‘Beeswing’
provides some of the love interest. ‘The two
Conneeleys’ and ‘Cry like a man’
some of the tragedy, the crowd pleasing ‘Lisdoonvarna’
and the thoroughly mad ‘Sixteen fishermen
raving’ the nonsense. |
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Regular Whiskyfun readers will also be interested
to know that we had a well informed illicit distilling
song, ‘McIlhatton’, written by IRA hunger
striker Bobby Sands. And, though I can’t list
everything that was played, I should mention a noble
performance of ‘The well below the valley’,
with Moore on bowrawn, and a ‘you could hear
a pin drop’ moment when he sang ‘Hurt’,
the Trent Reznor song memorably performed by Johnny
Cash on The Man Comes Around.
I really do think it would be easier if you bought
you the CD, which really speaks for itself. It shows
off Moore’s wonderful voice, which was really
in good shape at the Barbican, and Sinnott’s
guitar work (ditto). You might also like to buy
Burning Times, a collection of covers (some quite
excellent) by Moore and Sinnott released last year.
Best of all, of course, go and see him if you ever
get the sniff of a chance. It’s a grand night,
you won’t be disappointed. - Nick Morgan
(photographs by Kate) |
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