Donal Lunny's Definitive Lisdoonvarna

Ah Lisdoonvarna... green fields, grey skies, milk white thighs, flagons and the best music to be had on any one stage at the dawn of the 1980’s.

This 20th anniversary collection presents a not entirely accurate picture of the festival’s eclectic line-up over the years. Heavily skewed towards Irish traditional and folk acts, we get the likes of Moving Hearts’ ‘Hiroshima Nagasaki Russian Roulette’ Planxty (‘Queen of the Rushes’), Andy Irvine (‘Way Out Yonder’), and The Chieftains’ ‘The Kilfenora Set’. Christy Moore’s ‘Lisdoonvarna’ is inevitably included (In fact Christy features here on no less than four occasions while few would quibble with the chance to hear classics such as Phil Lynott’s ‘Old Town’, and Rory Gallagher’s ‘Brute Force and Ignorance’. Of the big international stars who appeared Jackson Brown’s ‘The Pretender’ and Emmylou Harris’ ‘Sweet Dreams’ are both worthy of inclusion, while the best of English folk is represented by Richard and Linda Thompson’s ‘Shoot Out The Lights’ and John Martyn’s ‘Angeline’.

However, the festival pre-dates Clannad’s ‘In A Lifetime’ by a couple of years and the choice of a more recent song from Paul Brady (‘The World Is What You Make It’) seems strange – especially if the point of this is to evoke the memory of the festival.

My own recollections of the festival are quite different however and include blistering sets from Dr. Feelgood, The Beat, Classic Noveaux and Dave Edmunds, while Carlene Carter, Wishbone Ash and UB40 were among other headliners omitted here. Neither are there any Irish rock or new wave bands included despite the fact that The Rhythm Kings, Tokyo Olympics, The Atrix and Mamas Boys all appeared at one time or another.

To be fair, Donal Lunny who moderated this collection – he admits in the liner notes that he could have filled several volumes. A bonus disc presents some of the acts due to perform at the Lisdoonvarna 2003 Festival (taking place at the RDS in August) including Halite’s ‘Underneath The World’, The Frames (‘Lay Me Down’) Davit Kitt (‘You Know What I Want To Know’) and Christy yet again with ‘The Time Has Come’.

A solid if predictable collection of major, mainly Irish acts then, but hardly a “definitive” representation of Lisdoonvarna as it truly was.