Christy Moore review: A powerhouse of a performance leads to standing ovation at Live at the Marquee

Irish Examiner

29-06-2025

Christy Moore just loves to perform for his Live at the Marquee audience, and yet another capacity night proves just how mutual that love is.
Christy played the Marquee in its launch year of 2005, when Brian Wilson, the recently deceased Beach Boy, was the first artist to perform here.
God only knows how Christy keeps going. He is the only artist to have attended every single Marquee. In an annual series broken only by Covid, this night was Christy's 19th year bringing his unique circus to Cork's big tent.
It's hard to believe, really, that he turned 80 in May. What a powerhouse of a performance. The voice is as crystal clear as ever, the wit as sharp as a fishmonger's favourite blade.
"Johnny, fill her up," he says to his technician, changing guitars.
Christy Moore in concert at Live At The Marquee, Cork on Saturday. Picture: Eddie O'Hare
Last year saw the release of the flawless album A Terrible Beauty, which sits up there with his all-time best work. Several of the songs featured in the tent: Cumann Na Mná and Palestine, and, of course, The Big Marquee, which he originally began writing a few years ago in the car journey down to Cork. In it, he mentions countless Cork people.
"The first time I played this was in the Opera House on a tribute night for Don O'Leary of the Cork Life Centre. He's here again tonight, so we'll sing it for him. "
He dedicated My Little Honda 50 to Ruby, a six-year-old attending along with two generations of her family.
"Thanks to you, Ruby, you make an 80-year-old man feel really great."
Christy Moore in concert at Live At The Marquee, Cork on Saturday. Picture: Eddie O'Hare
Across the course of the evening, you see every shade of Christy. One minute, we are laughing at the speed of his reaction to a shout from the audience requesting a song while he's talking.
"I'll be with you in five minutes, Mary. Here's a song I wrote 40 years ago. Sadly, it's entirely from my own experience. I add a new verse every year, but I can never remember the decade that I'm in." Delirium Tremens.
The next minute, we are plunged into a kind of dark introspection that few of us actively seek out for our entertainment, and yet we're glad when we are floored by its stark authenticity.
Like Black & Amber, Christy's a capella version of the song by Brian Brannigan of A Lazarus Soul; it's the moving tale of a woman left at home every night while her man is down the local pub: 'It's oh so lonely O he's left us on our owneo, Down the Black and Amber treatin' strangers like they're Kings'.
Throughout the gig, Christy takes time to credit the many writers whose songs he records and performs. This is a regular trait in his shows. It must be a great buzz for songwriters to be name-checked by Ireland's all-time great folk artist. He mentions Hank Wedel, Martin Leahy, Jimmy McCarthy and more.
"Sometimes you're singing a song, and it makes you think of another song. In 1974, I did a tour of West Cork with Jimmy Crowley, and I picked up this song." He sings Johnny Jump Up unplanned, impromptu and again a cappella.
And then there's all the classic hits: Viva la Quinta Brigada, Spancil Hill, Back Home in Derry, The City of Chicago, Joxxer, Johnny Boy/Ride On, Bright Blue Rosé, The Voyage and Ordinary Man.
A personal highlight for me was Christy's Yellow Triangle. A truly great song from his 1996 album Graffiti Tongue, he doesn't always play it. I'm sure it gives Christy no pleasure that his spine-chilling anti-fascist lyrics are more relevant today than ever.
Politics, comedy, love and death, clapping along, singing. A night with everything. Such a powerful journey from one man's mastery to a standing ovation.
Out and about at Live at the Marquee