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A rare performance by a rare Planxty line-up. Donal was gone, Johnny was in, Christy was on the way out & Paul was just in...... Liam Óg Ó'Flynn Andy Irvine Johnny Moynihan Paul Brady Christy Moore Tracklist: Yarmouth Town 0:00 The Little Drummer The Rambles of Kitty The Frost is All Over Arthur McBride (Paul Brady) What Andy had to say about this period “Paul Brady had been invited to join Planxty when Donal left in Autumn 1973. He declined as he was, at that time, still playing with The Johnstons in the USA and he felt a strong commitment to Adrienne Johnston, who later died a tragic death. We asked him again now, to replace Christy and this time, to our joy, he accepted. Paul gave Planxty a big lift. He didn't bring many songs with him though as The Johnstons had become a bit of a middle of the road band by this time. He did, however, bring his version of Arthur McBride and I always remember the first time I heard it in a Donegal pub. I was blown away as everybody has been since! 1974-75 Before Christy left we played for a month in Edinburgh as a five piece. We had been asked to provide the music for a play called The Fantastical Feats of Finn McCool which was to be a part of the Edinburgh Festival and was staged at the Ice Rink—long gone. We had a tremendous time: playing in one place for a month was a luxury we were not used to! Christy duly left and we went on our merry way with our engine room back. We toured all over Europe but exhaustion was setting in. By the early summer of 1975, the writing was on the wall: we had to continue because we were now in debt. We had hired an accountant, who shall be nameless, to sort out our Income Tax and without wishing to court libel, I think he took us for a long long ride. Tempers became frayed and relationships became strained, nothing personal, we were just at the end of our tether. We did one final tour in France with Malicorne and Jean-Pau Verdier. The music was good. My diaries record that we opened the shows—all round France—and went down as well as ever. Johnny recorded this tour in an extremely funny series of cartoons, with limericks attached, that was entitled The Humours of Planxty. I wish I had a copy today! Back home, we called a meeting in Des’ office and disbanded. It was a great relief and we adjourned to Madigan’s pub in Donnybrook. We drank to the demise of Planxty, looked at each other and said, ‘’So what do we do now?''. Planxty had been my life for three and a half years and now I was back in the mean old world again. Since Paul and myself had struck up a particular friendship we decided to stick together and become a duo. At the same time my old friend Alec Finn had asked me to join De Dannan because Dolores Keane had left. So I was in two outfits at the same time, which I should have known was going to be a disaster.“ ---------------------------------------------------------------- Your source for all the latest from Andy Irvine
