Some of the lists I have no idea who they are, where I picked it up or whether I was working or not. Lists that are obviously someone, I investigate using Spotify. Some I remember something, some I remember more. Most are printed but some are hand written – these are the ones I prefer.
I’ve seen Christy Moore on 4 occasions, the first time when I was maybe 16 years old at the Trip to Tipp festival. (I’d seen his lesser known brother, Luka Bloom, before this, in a side tent at the Reading festival.) The last time I saw him was with my mum, in Belfast a the Waterfront. There is something quintessentially Irish about him, like Miro is to Spain, Tolstoy to Russia or even Woody Allen to NYC – it’s almost impossible to extract him from his surroundings, even when he’s singing about South Africa or native Americans.
After the show, which had unfortunately been somewhat spoilt by a loud drunken group sitting a few rows ahead of us (“West Belfast”, my mother commented with wry prejudice) – the theatre emptied out pretty quick – I’m assuming the audience wanted to get to the last hours of the local pubs. The two of us made our way to the stage edge where the set up was still untouched – one chair, three acoustic guitars on stands, three monitor speakers, mic set-up, all placed on a thick Persian like rug (something to do with the sound vibration into the stage, not a Christy Moore rider extravagance) – it all sat like an uninhabited island in the vast sea of the Waterfront stage. And just as I was being nosy, a sound guy came out to start packing down the gear – “thanks for the show”, I said – small talk, banal small talk at that – then my mother chirped in with her tuppence, commenting on the drunken party a few rows down from us – “Hope they didn’t spoil the show too much”, said the sound guy. I asked for the set list and he gave me both pages (only one pictured here) – not so much a list of what songs to preform, more just directions in which way to go – something I kind of expect from an artist like Moore. I don’t know whether the list was written by Moore himself – I hope so – but regardless, it’s a unique reminder of the evening.