Older and wiser but no less passionate

WHEN the lights go up at Live at the Marquee on Friday week after Christy Moore has given blood, sweat, and tears to his performance, he will make a beeline for home.

It’s no reflection on his audience — he “feels blessed and privileged” that they want to hear him sing and every concert is a mindful exercise in giving them his best. But home is where his heart is — it’s the safe base to which the 69-year-old can retreat, where he plays the guitar and piano every day and sings in his room. It’s where the dad of three adult children has the company of his wife, Valerie, who he describes as his “best friend” and who has shared a deeply emotional journey with him over their 41 years of marriage. Home is also the base to which he retreated for two years when he had, in his own words, a breakdown at the age of 53. That was 11 years after his heart attack and nine after he became sober.

“During the period of the breakdown I lost the facility to go out, to communicate and I was convinced I wouldn’t be able to play again,” he says.

Fellow musician Declan Sinnott teased him out of that dark place by playing music with him in his home and gradually Moore plucked up the courage to stage a small solo gig in public — and has never looked back. Or rather he does look back, but with 25 years of “hard earned” sobriety behind him, it’s from a more grounded, wiser place.

Famously vocal against the Catholic Church he says he “ran from it” at 16 and it wasn’t until he sobered up at 44 that he “started that other journey — one of gratitude, compassion, and a lot less anger”. That gratitude, the fact he got “a second chance” at living, radiates out to those in his private circle who have stood by his side, and the wide fanbase for whom he stages 60-70 concerts a year, who appreciate him for his passionate authenticity.

How does he keep the pace going though, now that he’s knocking on the door of his seventh decade? “As a 69-year-old man still on the road, these days I sit on a stool when I’m performing — I no longer attempt to climb the barricades, I’d probably fall off and break my neck!”

He does stay fit though by walking 20 miles a week and doing yoga-based stretching daily. He also has a “lengthy preamble” for every gig and is “obsessive and fastidious” in his preparation, including physically stretching, and also warming up his vocal cords, for 15 minutes before going on stage, because then he is “continuing the singing rather than starting”. It’s a nod of respect towards those who have paid to see him: “I would not be doing what I’m doing only for the listeners. And I’m grateful that I still can sing at my age.”

It wasn’t always that way, though.

“Years ago I would have been half stoned or half jarred. The way I lived my life before, I certainly wouldn’t be alive today.” As a result he now takes each day as it comes: “If I wake up tomorrow I hope I can do some good, maybe find a new song.”

In the meantime, Friday week’s performance will be his 10th straight year playing at the 5,000-capacity Marquee. “No one else has played it every year since it commenced. I’m proud of that achievement. I love big indoor gigs. Walking out at the Marquee to a full house is an incredible experience.

“But when the crowd disperses there will be but one place that I will want to be — home.”