Featuring more than 50 performers tonight’s Jimmy Faulkner tribute gig was on an epic scale commensurate with the man himself – and as difficult for a reviewer to pin down. We began just after eight, Noel Bridgeman and Pat Farrell with ‘I Will’, the song they sang with Jimmy – and what a sad connection to have to make – at the funeral of Declan MacNelis, and ended at half-past midnight with a skull-shattering assault on the audience by Gary Moore. This was a gig which gouged its own groove into the consciousness and sustained a bittersweet ethic throughout.
Christy, Declan, Mick Hanly, Paul Brady [pictured], Mick Pyro, Honor Heffernan, Philip Donnelly, Garry O’Brian, Mairtín O’Connor etc, etc… All we can do is pick personal moments.
Bree Harris, pulsing with passion – might have been Janis – was the stand-out act, with ‘Gotta Serve Somebody’ and, accompanied by Tommy Moore, ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’. Frankie Lane’s tale of Jimmy Rodgers’ last journey would have taken tears from a stone. Mary Stokes, Robbie Overson and Nigel Mooney turned in a sensational primary-colour blues set. Mick Hanly was genial, grizzled, great. Brush Shiels illuminated all around him with a deadly ‘Drift Away’. Richie Buckley contributed flourishes of saxophone genius to a succession of line-ups. And so on etc., from pub rock to the Café Orchestra.
We ended with Pete Cummins orchestrating an ensemble rendition of ‘Knocking On Heaven’s Door’ which nobody wanted to come to an end but which provided the perfect conclusion.
I suspect that in years to come 10 times the capacity of the Olympia will swear blind they were there.