MOVING HEARTS: (Olympia Theatre, Dublin)

IN A lineage which stretches back to the early experiments of Sweeney’s Men, Moving Hearts were perhaps the finest realisation of a music waiting for fulfilment. Their effortless marriage of jazz, rock and traditional music had about it a certain symmetry which perhaps no band before or since has quite achieved. Last night at the Olympia – a packed house, too – we were forcibly reminded of the gap left by their inactivity down the years, as they delivered a spine-tingling, jaw-moving set which had the entire audience on its feet for at least the closing half-hour of the gig.

Beginning with a riff-laden version of McBride’s – Jimmy Smith and Greg Boland traded licks with a frenzy here – it was sheer bliss for the next eighty minutes or so, the smoothness of pieces like ‘Finore’ in perfect contrast to sets like ‘The Lark’ which was prefaced by bassist, Eoghan O’Neill, asking the audience, “Would yiz be up for a bit of a dance?” No second bidding was needed as we jigged, bopped and slid to this interface of pipes, guitars, sax, bass, percussion and keyboards.

Moving Hearts are the rarest of chemistries, a glorious mutation of invention and genius, who might have, if fate had treated them differently, been infinitely more successful. Their legacy, whether they regroup again or not, is this splendid inspirational music, this combination of spirituality and muscle so effectively revealed on the night. Tell you what, if I can swing it I’m off again tonight!

• Oliver P. Sweeney