So a few weeks ago I reviewed Rainy Sundays Windy Dreams by Andy Irvine. Here’s that:
And I mentioned in it I would soon be going to see Andy Irvine and Donal Lunny playing in St Luke’s. Sadly, Donal Lunny couldn’t make the gig due to health issues, and I hope he makes a quick recovery. However, I have seen Andy Irvine playing many times before, so despite the disappointment of not getting to see Donal Lunny, I knew I was in for a great show.
The venue is a deconsecrated church, that has been used for live gigs since 2015. This was my second gig in the church, the first being seeing Wyvern Lingo in 2018. And going to hear music in a church is quite an experience, the magnificent architecture and the way the music reverberates off the cavernous walls is something quite epic.
Three of Andy Irvine’s instruments were already on stage, the baritone bouzouki, a mandolin, and another mandolin that I later learned was in a different tuning. I was wondering where the famous guitar bodied bouzouki was, but no fear, I’d be seeing that soon enough.
And then the announcer asked us to give Andy a warm welcome, and we did, the applause was deafening as he walked on stage, guitar bodied bouzouki in hand (oh he has it with him that answers that!)
He played many of the old classics that I couldn’t wait to hear. “A Prince Among Men” is one of my favourite songs of Andy’s, it’s a very sad but touching song, about a man who swore that his son would never have to work in the mines, like he did, and his father before him, so he saved up every penny so that his son would be put through college and wouldn’t have to work the mines. One of the proudest moments of the father’s life was seeing his son receive his diploma, a guarantee that he would never have to works the mines, but the difficult and dangerous work took a massive toll on his health, and tragically, he was killed in a mining accident, the circumstances of which were barely even investigated. A heartbreaking song, but also one of hope, as a father’s love for his son saved him from a life of toil and possibly an early grave in the mines.
Andy also played one of his newer songs, simply called Houdini, about the man himself who could escape from pretty much anything. This was a lighter toned more comedic song, about the various tricks that Harry Houdini pulled off that had people in awe for decades after his death.
And Andy sang Forgotten Hero, a song about Micheal Davitt, who fought against landlordism in 19th century Ireland. I’ve always loved both the version he did on his album Rain On the Roof, which is just vocals, bouzouki and harmonica, and the version he did with the band Patrick Street, which is a full band version. But this time, he did something different, something that had I missed this concert, I may never have gotten the chance to hear. He explained that he really wanted to play Forgotten Hero again, but had long forgotten how to play it on the bouzouki. So he performed it acappella! It was amazing to hear a vocals only performance of this, with his voice reverberating off the walls of the church. Truly an unforgettable performance!
Throughout the performance I was hoping he’d play one of my favourites, Băneasă’s Green Glade, and sure enough he did play it. This is a song from Andy’s album Rain On the Roof, and also performed on the Planxty album Cold Blow And The Rainy Night, about Andy’s time spent in Romania living in a forest. It’s a song with very tender vocals, Andy’s nostalgia for that time in the Romanian forest clear in both his singing and the lyrics, and he plays a lot of open strings on the mandolin during this song, making for a very harp like sound. He ends this song, as he ends many of his songs, by going straight into an instrumental without stopping, a Dajchovo horo, a type of Bulgarian folk tune. It’s in 9/16 time, remember that, that’s going to be important later.
And he played the mandolin at break neck speed, if it wasn’t such a well constructed instrument you’d wonder if the poor mandolin would be alright! I can barely play 9/16 slowly, I can barely play 9/16 if it’s the easiest 9/16 you can imagine, and here was Andy, playing it at incredible speed! And speaking of 9/16, let’s get back to that.
There should be a phrase, “Never bring 4/4 to a 9/16 fight.” I’m not sure if that’s a coherent phrase, but never the less it should be a phrase. During Dajchovo horo, some audience members started clapping along. No don’t do it! It’s a lively tune, and yes it is suitable for a clap along, but, just, don’t try and clap along if you’re not familiar with a 9/16 time signature! Wisely the audience gave up on trying to clap along with the rhythmic maze that is Balkan folk music. Andy even commented, “That’s the first time I’ve had an audience clap along in 4/4 to a song that’s in 9/16 time!”
The last tune was the Blacksmith, a song on Planxty’s first album. This was actually the very first experiment in combining Irish trad with Eastern European folk music, because the Blacksmith ends with an instrumental written by Andy himself called Black Smithereens. Some of it is in 5/4 time, that’s all I know, and, as has been a highlight of his live show for years, Andy plays the whole thing on mandolin. It’s amazing how much of a full sound he gets with that mandolin, and the song ended with absolutely thunderous applause. Andy then said he had to be out by half ten, so it looked like that would be it, or……
The last song is never the last song, we’ve all been to concerts before, we all know that. But I thought that since the show had to be finished at 10:30, for the first time in history, the last song might be the last song. But I looked at my watch.
It was 10:23. There would be one last song!
Andy came back on stage and played Never Tire Of The Road, a song that is a tribute to his hero Woodie Guthrie. Woodie Guthrie is even the reason that Andy plays the harmonica upside down! There was clapping along to this one aswell, but it worked better this time, instead of it being completely off it acted as kind of a polyrhythm.
Andy always asks that the audience sings along to the “All You Fascists Bound To Lose”, verse, and if I recall correctly, this was my first time singing along to it, having been always too self conscious to do so before. And then the show ended, and Andy was given a much deserved standing ovation, so loud that I’m surprised it didn’t take the roof off.
Andy Irvine is 81 years old. Many musicians ten or twenty years younger, have either retired from live performance or at least had to scale it back, or at least had to make some sort of compromise where the singing or the playing is simplified, which is understandable, age inevitably forces us all to slow down a bit. The key of a song dropped here or a song simplified there is probably alright, but too much of this, and the songs might lose the magic that made them so compelling in the first place. So many older musicians can be in the unenviable position of deciding whether to stop playing the music they love, or continue, knowing that the songs might well be a shadow of their former selves. So, were any of the songs simplified, or any of the vocals dropped in key from when I heard him play in his sixties?
No, not that I could see. This performance has the same power, and the same complexity in the playing, as the first Andy Irvine gig I ever saw, when he would have been about 64. Andy’s been blessed with good health into his eighties, and he’s chosen to just keep doing what he loves best, share his music with an audience that can’t get enough of it. I’m 38 now, and my fondest wish is that when I’m in my eighties I will still be doing the things in life that I love best.
And that’s the story of the gig that I’m sure by years end I will still consider to be one of the best things about 2024.
Ponderings Of An Autist 
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