In Concert
1965 — VANGUARD VRS 9187 LP
American release

Credits

Ronnie Drew: Vocals Amd Guitar
Ciaron Bourke: Vocals, Flagolet and Harmonica
Bobby Lynch: Vocals and Guitar
Barney Mckenna: Banjo and Mandolin
John Sheehan: Fiddle, Mandolin and Flagolet

Recorded on December 4, 1964 in the Concert Hall Cecil Sharp House, London
Engineer: Martin Haines
Produced by Nathan Joseph
Cover: Brian Shuel

Sleeve Notes

Dripping wet. I answered the telephone "Mr. Clancy, there are four gentlemen to see you."

"Right, tell them to give me five minutes, I'm in the tub." The people in the Shelbourne Hotel in Dublin are so frightfully polite. Nobody could possibly mistake these four wild bearded characters for gentlemen. I rushed my clothes on in terror of what they might be up to. let loose in the Shelbourne. I stepped out into the corridor and sure enough there they were. The corridor was carpeted. A carpet is to roll on — to practice falling on — to throw someone else on without hurting him — for hand springs and judo and things like that. So I quick got them into my room.

The meeting was to discuss the advancement of the group — the Dubliners — or the "Heads" as we used to call them then. Discuss? Ha — a lily. I didn't get one word in edgewise for the next two hours. It was a general confession of everyone else's eccentricities. "I mean. Liam. I don't expect Barney to turn up half an hour before the show in a tuxedo and a dickey-bow, ya know. But Janey, Liam, to come an hour and a half late with a boot on wan foot and a shoe on the other. I mean, Liam, that's a bit much. By the way. Liam, not to interrupt the meeting or anything is it all right to have wan little small wan"? Ronnie had discovered my bottle of whiskey.

"Certainly." I went to get some glasses. The water was running in the bathtub. "What's that?" I shouted in.

"Tis all right. Liam, I'm only giving meself a wash. I can hear ye from here. Pass me in the drink."

John was hopping naked into the tub.

The diminishing whiskey, like the sand in an hourglass, told me of the passing time. The arguments went back and forth like children telling tales on each other. Everyone was getting plastered. "Liam, is it all right if I have the last little sup out of the bottle. It's hardly worth savin' ya know? It's not enough for a cure in the morning or anything ya know."

"By Janey" says Kieran [sic] "My mot'll kill if I don't get home. We'll wind this fiasco up. Well. Liam, what do you think we should do about the group."

Before we hustled out the door I barely had time to say "I think what the group needs is some organization."

From the side of the stage that night I watched them. It was pandemonium. There was no barrier between audience and performers. They were shouting at each other, abusing each other.

"Luke, give us the 'Fol the diddle Rye' wan." someone in the audience was shouting.

"You," shouts Ronnie, "would ye try to have manners. I mean I know ya weren't brought up with them but would ya try."

"Give us 'Finnegans Wake' Ronnie."

"I'm only getting paid to be up here" says Ronnie. "D'ya mind if I sing me own song. Do ya mind? Barney give us your E."

While they are tuning Kieran [sic] is accusing Barney of sitting on the case of stout and making it warm. Silence eventually falls as Ronnie, with a voice that would rasp the dead, tears into a lovely lyric song. "Twa down by Christ church that I first met with Annie." A haunting thing made more by the clash of words and voice.

"If you chance for to go to the town of Dungannon you may search till your eyeballs are empty and blind. But sittin or runnin or walkin or standin a girl like Annie you never will find."

"That's a great song" Ronnie tells the audience. "That was banned by Radio Eireann. They said it was dirty. They didn't ban Elvis Presley tho' from singing 'Baby let's play house.' Cause he's famous he couldn't be singing anything dirty." Ronnie needs no excuse for a tirade on hypocrisy.

It was incredible to me to see the change that came over the audience when Barney and John started in with banjo and mandolin on "Róisín Dubh," one of the "big" themes of Ireland. I can always tell when Barney gets carried away by his own playing. His nose gets thin and long like a horse's and the nostrils turn pale. You daren't break the spell then. The man is inspired.

As I stood on the side of the stage and thought of the adventures I'd had with these lovely madmen, I said, My God, these are the people of O'Casey and Joyce. Innocents, led to beautiful things by the instincts of a strange race. These are inheritors of that magic that gave Dublin its long, lone procession of great "characters." The Zosimos's. Fluther Good, Joxer Dalys, the storytellers, wits, great talkers, great drinkers, the Gogarty's and Behans. Please God may they never never get organized.

Liam Clancy (…these notes only appear on the American release)

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The Dubliners
"These wonderful Dubliners," as Domnic Behan described them in Folk Music, are Ireland's favorite folksingers and the toast of the country. But this gives only a small inkling of the shouts of joy they have aroused everywhere. The group was first formed at the Edinburgh International Festival of 1963. followed its success there by becoming a fixed institution home in Ireland, grew "from strength to strength", and then toured England, packing the biggest halls in the country. The fame of these "five bearded Irishmen," or "Dublin darlings," as various commentators describe them, spread through recordings to America, Australia and New Zealand. Unforgettable singers — "Ronnie Drew's voice makes Louis Armstrong sound like a dove in one of its gentler moods" says the Belfast News Letter — and brilliant instrumentalists — "Barney McKenna plays banjo with a skill that must be unsurpassed anywhere in the world" says the Tribune — they sound as if they have been together all of their lives.

Alternate releases

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Notes

…this is the American release of the Dubliners' second album. The song order is different, as are the sleeve notes.

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