"That's the business isn't it! Just a goatskin and a finger."
So said Christy Moore after his bodhrán solo captivated the crowd during his last Glastonbury appearance.
His next concert, on September 19, a live-streamed event from the National Concert Hall in Dublin, will seem to be a million miles from the Glastonbury of yesteryear — when thousands of fans crammed together in pre-Covid innocence.
But one thing will undoubtedly be the same.
Armed only with his guitar, a handful of chords and fairly uncompromising political views, Christy Moore will captivate his audience.
In this case, on September 19 at 8pm, the audience will be global and online — the event will be the folk legend’s first ever live-streaming event.
Christy’s one-off, exclusive concert will be shot in HD on seven cameras, and despite the unprecedented nature of the gig for the singer and his fans, it seems set to be an intimate evening.
Christy has been captivating audiences since the 1960s.
He was in the second wave of Irish musicians that established Irish folk music as just about the most popular ethnic music in the world.
The Dubliners and the Clancys were in the vanguard, something Christy has never been slow to pay tribute to. “Irish music was banned and denounced, and survived centuries of oppression,” he has said.
“But all the Clancys had to do was sing them once and they sprang back to life. Their revival was a turning point in our history and culture.
"They turned our heads and we began to wonder where we were and who we were and many of us loved what we saw.”
Thus transfixed by our native music, Christy’s odyssey had begun.
By the 1970s he was a member of Planxty, then Moving Hearts, after which he followed a solo career
His recording output includes more than 40 albums from Paddy on the Road (1969) to Magic Nights (2019).
The National Concert Hall gig will be streamed live online exclusively to ticket holders.
The broadcast will be available to tickets holders for 24 hours following the performance.
Tickets, costing €16.50, are available to purchase online here.
