Christy Moore set to raise Galway’s Big Top

GALWAY Arts Festival has confirmed that Christy Moore and Declan Sinnott will perform at the Festival Big Top on Friday, July 20. Special guests on the night will be high-energy trad group 4 Men and A Dog. The show is Moore’s only gig in Galway city in 2012 and promises to be a massive music highlight at this year’s festival.
Christy Moore is one of Ireland’s most prolific singer-songwriters famous for his iconic songs Lisdoonvarna, Don’t Forget Your Shovel and Ride On. His acclaimed new album Folk Tale, produced by Declan Sinnott, is the latest result of Christy and Declan’s unique musical alliance. Their long collaboration has gained a loyal and ever-increasing following. Other players featuring on the album include Gerry O’ Connor, Tim Edey and Neil Martin with The West Ocean String Quartet.
The album features eleven tracks. One song argues that God must be a Woman, another describes a Flight to Freedom, and there is a song about The Singing Priests in the Phoenix Park and another describing a bunch of Tulips in Amsterdam.
The Kildare singer rates his performance with headliners Coldplay at Oxygen last year as a memorable experience, when the sound was heard of 80,000 young people singing along to Jimmy McCarthy’s classic Ride On. Christy believes that his collaboration began when the 12-year-old Coldplay drummer, Will Chamberlain, attended one of his gigs in Southampton in 1992.
Moore was recently listed in the book Rough Guide to Bob Dylan for his recording of The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll, the Rough Guide’s favourite Bob Dylan listing.
The recent prestigious anthology edition of the Penguin Book of Irish Verse includes Christy’s 1983 song Lisdoonvarna.
Tickets for the show are now on sale from www.galwayartsfestival.com.