Last night, at 8.10pm, Hansard took to the Vicar Street stage with his battered guitar. After uttering the words “how yis”, he began to play “Heyday” and the crowd was immediately engaged. The audience was made up the classic busker types – torn jeans, facial hair and plenty of emotion. The evening also marked the fifteenth anniversary of charismatic musician Mic Christopher’s death.
Born in the Bronx to Irish parents, Christopher moved to Dublin at the age of three. In 2001, he finally recorded his first solo EP before tragically dying the same year after falling while on tour with the Waterboys in Holland. Hansard was a close friend of Christopher’s, dedicating every Frames album to him. This particular gig also acted as a tribute to Hansard’s busking ally.
Hansard has achieved a lot over the years. For some, he will always be Outspan Foster from The Commitments but on top of this he has an Oscar sitting on his mantelpiece and a character on the Simpsons (an Irish busker, of all things). It is perhaps his emotional delivery of songs that he is best known for. “It’s been a tough year for music” Hansard stated, before singing a Fergus O’Farrell song, accompanied by Liam O’Maonlai on piano.
After Hansard, Bronagh Gallagher, another Commitments graduate, continues the show. “This will be a tender night” she said, before delivering a couple of her country-tinged solo songs, while sharing a few memories of Christopher. She is followed by many of Christopher’s old busking friends, and some younger ones who were simply inspired by him. The night had many highlights, including an appearance by genre-bending 90’s legends, The Pale, who performed a stirring version of one of their best-known songs “Butterfly”.
A turn by folk legends Scullion followed, they performed the aptly titled “Short Life”. There was a very special moment when Hansard introduced a busker he met at a gig recently, Ciaran Mulvihill from Listowel, who sand the little-known, but beautiful, Christopher song “When We Caught the Moon”, definitely one worth checking if you are unfamiliar. Mundy, Jerry Fish, Kila and Christopher’s old band, The Mary Janes, all offered their tributes, another emotional version of Christopher song “Friends”, and still no sign of the heartfelt night coming to a close. There were lot of people on stage, and Hansard certainly did not want to go home. That’s the way it should be on a “tender” night. Hansard did his friend proud.
