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Sleeve Notes
The arrival of a three-headed monster from Planet Pluto would have appeared marginally less extraordinary than The Dubliners in 1968. This, remember, was a heady post-flower power era of multi-coloured flairs, dodgy cigarettes, quadruple concept albums and deep, mystical lyrics about nights in white satin. If anyone knew any bawdy boozey chorus songs, then they most certainly kept them to themselves.
The Dubliners looked like they'd just been dragged out of a seedy bar via a hedge (backwards) and dropped on London from a very great height. The odd thing was they probably had. As a fashion statement in 1968, The Dubliners were an unmitigated disaster area; the only thing they got remotely right were the beards. But then again, they'd all been born with beards anyway …
But strange beast as it is, the pop world lay down and kicked its legs in the air with delight when The Dubliners lurched over the horizon with a lusty burst of harmless filth called 'Seven Drunken Nights'. It was a daft little song they'd recorded in three minutes flat, but the fledgling pirate station Radio Caroline championed it and before they could get the next round in the record was soaring up the charts elbowing The Beatles and Moody Blues out of the way en route. The Dubliners had become the unlikeliest pop stars in the solar system.
In the realms of pop music history, 'Seven Drunken Nights' was just a transient novelty hit, but its local ramifications were profound. It fired Irish folk music into a previously unimaginable international arena, providing the impetus for all manner of innovative shenanigans to follow; and it triggered those bearded wonders off on a wild and wonderful course that shows no signs of abating five and twenty years on.
This concert in '68 was a significant landmark in that course. Playing at the posh Royal Albert Hall in London — a venue previously dominated by symphony orchestras and Frank Zappa — convinced them that yeah, maybe they could make a career out of this singing lark after all. All these centuries later they still cite this show as one of the highlights of their career.
The Albert Hall, for sure, had scarcely seen anything like it before. The Dubs made no concessions to the prestigiousness of their surroundings; they merely went out there and belted out the raggle taggle mixture of folk songs they'd been playing in the pubs and clubs of Dublin for the last couple of years with as much gusto as they could muster. They played for the sheer joy of it and their spirit quickly enveloped an audience that fell easy prey to the full gamut of emotions in their songs.
The hell-raising drinking songs 'Whisky In The Jar' and 'Whisky On A Sunday'; the emotion-charged traditional stuff 'Peggy Gordon' and 'Leaving Of Liverpool'; the salacious comedy numbers 'Maids When You're Young' and 'Seven Drunken Nights'; the blazing instrumentals 'Cork Hornpipe' and 'Flop-Eared Mule'; and the classic folk songs 'Off To Dublin In The Green' and 'Black Velvet Band' (later also to become a hit single). Vintage Dubliners singing songs that have become synonymous with them. All human life was here!
They were a sensation. Ronnie Drew at the front with the rasping voice and leathery lungs, ably supported by the equally ebullient Luke Kelly and Cairon Bourke. All this and the instrumental virtuosity of banjoman Barney McKenna and the man on the fiddle John Sheahan.
The Dubs have gone on since to have many great and good adventures — as well as their fair share of tragedy and disaster en route. Both Cairon Bourke and Luke Kelly became victims of the rigorous lifestyle involved in being a Dubliner, while Drew had to spend several years out of the band to preserve both health and sanity.
Since this album was recorded, we've seen off four British Prime Ministers, six American presidents, seven Olympics, several Wars and half the Ozone Layer … and it still sounds glorious. Now that's what we call miraculous.
COLIN IRWIN
