Makes you want to emigrate

The Last Straw: Nostalgia was rampant at the Planxty concert on Wednesday night. Everywhere you looked in Vicar Street, you could see people having misty-eyed memories of the 1970s. A man beside me in the Gents' toilet summed it up when, pining for lost youth, he sighed: "God, I feel like emigrating again."

My own mind wandered back to the first time I went to see the band, the summer I left school in 1979. I bought a tent with the savings from a factory job, and with my friend, Damien, headed west in search of music and women - not necessarily in that order.

As we would learn, the tent was not waterproof. Fly-sheets were extra, and my savings weren't extensive. Anyway, with the optimism of youth, we knew it wouldn't rain.

It rained non-stop in Galway - what were the odds? - but every cloud has a silver lining. And the absence of a silver lining, or any kind of lining, on the tent meant that you didn't waste mornings sleeping in. Around dawn, the water dripping through the seams would force you to get up and wring your hair out. By then, you'd be wide awake and ready for the day.

We quickly tired of the Galway climate, however, and instead of heading for Clifden, changed course for Sligo and the Ballisodare Folk Festival. As I recall, the event was to be headlined by the well-known folk guitarist, Chuck Berry, as well as Planxty. And even though, in a major surprise, it turned out to be raining in Sligo (and had been since about 1977) the place was buzzing.

A particular memory I have of Ballisodare is buying a steak-and-kidney pie from a chip van, and finding the inside still frozen solid. You were reluctant to complain about food in the 1970s, but I steeled myself somehow. The chef frowned at me for being so picky and threw the pie back in the frier, out of which, when he eventually rescued it, it emerged looking like debris from an accident in a nuclear plant. I might be making this up, but I think the van was called "The Gourmet Diner".

The main thing is that the Planxty gig in Ballisodare was fantastic. I imagine so, anyway. I wasn't actually at it. It was either sold out, or we couldn't afford the tickets, or both. Anyway, as I say, music wasn't the priority. In fact, I think the main reason we went to Sligo was that Damien had an older sister living there, in a house. Like Janis Ian, I learned the truth at 17. Which is that, fun and all as it is waking up in a wet tent, there's a lot to be said for a roof.

I did see Planxty once before they broke up in the early 1980s, and it was sobering to recall on Wednesday that way back then I thought they were oul' fellas, although they were younger than I am now. But what was really reassuring about this week's concert was that, incredibly after all this time, the age difference between the band and me is still exactly the same. It was just a bonus that they were still brilliant, too.

What was even more sobering about the concert was the fact that Vicar Street imposed drinking restrictions during the performance. A few fans had clearly taken the precaution of filling up beforehand, allowing Christy Moore to prove that, while he's lost his hair, he hasn't lost the high-velocity wit that can put a heckler down, permanently, from 500 yards. But the relatively abstemious audience, combined with the strict smoking ban and excellent air conditioning, made the event a lot healthier than Planxty concerts past, which was just as well given the infirmity of the audience.

The only throwback to the 1970s was a very persistent fly that dogged the band for much of the night. There were a lot of flies in the 1970s, as I recall, especially around folk musicians. The one on Wednesday was the subject of so much entertaining banter that you suspected he was on the payroll. But either way, he provided a crucial link with the past.

Of course, Ireland itself is unrecognisable from the country in which Planxty first performed their songs of love, loss, adultery, murder, dispossession, and the emigrant ship. The same Gents' toilet the other night had a polite attendant, apparently African, with a liquid soap dispenser in one hand and towels in the other. I'm fairly sure this service was not available at the Ballisodare Folk Festival. A little embarrassed, I took the soap and towel and left a tip. But you'd miss the hard times, all the same.