B-Side the Leeside: Mic Christopher - Live At The Lobby
Mic Christopher by Patrick Glennon
Just before midnight on September 20, 2001 an enthusiastic chorus of “Happy Birthday” rang out in the upstairs function room of the Lobby Bar in Cork. The recipient of the good wishes was a young Dublin man wearing a broad smile and a beanie hat pulled low over his head. He was to turn 32 the next day. Two months later, he would die tragically.
Mic Christopher was on the path to becoming one of the great Irish songwriters of his generation. He had unassuming manner yet was held in near awe by peers such as Glen Hansard and Mundy. Christopher, they believed, was a unique talent. And anyone who saw him in the Lobby on Union Quay 20 years ago could only have agreed. They would have shuffled into the cool autumn night, the air carrying just a hint of a chill, certain they had seen a coming star of Irish music.
And then, on November 29, 2001. the Mic Christopher story would have its heartbreaking end. Christopher was in Groningen touring with the Waterboys when he suffered a freak fall. Thirteen days later, having failed to recover consciousness, he died in hospital. A great talent was taken long before his time.
Christopher was a cult figure in Irish music and widely mourned. But, owing to his relatively obscurity, his death did not make headlines. Two years later, however, Guinness debuted an ad starring Michael Fassbender and featuring Christopher’s song Heyday. In it, Fassbender walks across Ireland and then swims to New York in order to apologise to another man. It introduced Christopher to a new generation and helped keep the flame of his legacy burning.
Today, the concert, and his death, feel like such a long time ago. Yet the performance remains remarkably fresh in the memories of those who were there. And, with the 20th anniversary of his passing approaching, a live recording of that gig at the Lobby is to be released on vinyl. Now everyone will have an opportunity to bask in the white heat of Christopher’s talent. When the record ends and the needle lifts, they may also wonder what might have been. Here is the story of Christopher and of that album.
Christopher was born in the Bronx, to a father from Dublin and a mother from Tyrone. They moved back to Ireland when he was a toddler. He went attended the Irish language Coláiste Chilliain in Clondalkin. In his teens, Christopher began busking around Dublin, where he met Glen Hansard of The Frames.
In 1990, Christopher formed The Mary Janes with Karl Odlum (later of The Frames and the producer of Gemma Hayes’ early 2000s indie classic, Night On My Side). The ensemble was a vehicle for Christopher’s intense and often morose songs. The Mary Janes’ other distinguishing quality is that they were a three-piece with no drummer.
Amid numerous line-up changes, they would go on to release two albums and to play at Glastonbury and at Féile in Thurles before breaking up in 1999. A year later, taking his first and only “day job” as a motorbike courier, Christopher suffered a head injury when he collided with a car.
He sustained a broken neck and was in a body-cast for three months. In that period, he began to write solo songs (though Heyday was already more or less complete). The surprise was that these songs were far sweeter and more optimistic than his Mary Janes material. In challenging circumstances, Christopher discovered that his instinct was to celebrate rather than to brood over his misfortunes.
Having recovered, he released the Heyday EP. It took the indie DIY aesthetic to extremes. Christopher burned the individual CDs on his home computer and then glued together the sleeves at his flat in Dartmouth Square in Ranelagh. And you could only buy it at gigs, through Christopher’s website, or from Road Records on Fade Street.
“Music was Mic’s whole life from an early age,” says his sister Maureen, who is helping put out the new Live at the Lobby vinyl via her label Loza, in conjunction with Donal Scannell’s Born Optimistic label.
“He was never going to follow any other career path. I suppose every artist wants to be recognised for their work and to achieve some success. So it would be wrong of me to say he wouldn't have liked all that,” she says.
“Mic also got a great sense of achievement from seeing people singing along to his songs and getting enjoyment from his music. For Mic, success would have had to be on his terms. He would never have compromised on his vision for his music.” His searing songwriting was combined with an easy-going manner that made him approachable off stage, she says.
“Besides his talent and his music Mic had a charisma that was hard to miss,” recollects his sister.
“He was approachable to his fans too. He always made time to talk to anyone who wanted to after his gigs. He even wrote his phone number and email address on his CDs, so anyone could contact him whenever they wanted. And he always replied.”
Lobby owner Pat Conway was sitting in the bar one afternoon in early 2000 when the pay-phone rang. It was Glen Hansard, a regular performer at the venue, located across from Cork City Hall. Hansard wanted Conway to take a punt on a new solo artist, Mic Christopher. He even had a date in mind for Christopher to make his Lobby debut – the following night, a Tuesday.
“I said to Glen, ‘how do you hope to get people here tomorrow night?” says Conway. “But it was full. Glen must have rang around. I never questioned his judgement after that.”
The September 2001 Lobby gig was Christopher’s seventh at the venue. He had by then amassed a following in Cork, who were delighted when Glen Hansard joined him for the encore. Together they sang Christopher’s anthem Heyday, before cantering through Bob Dylan’s You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere and Michelle Shocked’s Fogtown.
“Mic with the Mary Janes and Mic as a solo artist were two very different people,” recalls Maureen Christopher “I guess he'd matured at this stage and had become more confident. There was always plenty of banter on stage. Also his style of writing had changed too, partly influenced by a serious accident he had in 2000, although songs like Heyday were written before that.” Unbeknownst to Conway, the concert was recorded by a fan who had brought a digital mini-disc player. It’s that documenting of the evening that can now be experienced on the vinyl reissue, having been remastered from the original taping at Masterlabs in Boyle, Co Roscommon.
“Emmett Murphy was the man who recorded the gig that night,” says Maureen Christopher. “In January 2002,The Lobby ran a tribute night for Mic and my parents and I went along. Emmett gave my father a bunch of CDs that night that were the recordings from his mini disk. We've listened to it over and over again ever since. I will always be grateful to Emmett for recording it and for sharing the night with us and giving his blessing to this new album.
She wasn’t at the Lobby gig. But she has intense memories of her brother’s shows from around that time.
“I’d often drive him to gigs around the country. One in particular that I remember fondly was early September 2001, in The Taibhdhearc in Galway. Glen Hansard came along to support him and they played so late into the night that they eventually said ‘we don't know anymore song’,” she says. “That was after they had sung various TV programme theme tunes, including the theme from Prisoner of Cell Block H as well as a number of Wham songs.” “The thing about Mic’s gigs is that they were more a singalong than a gig,” adds Pat Conway. “They were just very catchy songs ultimately.
Conway’s ambition was to build Christopher’s audience up from the 100-capacity Lobby and to book him for the larger Everyman Theatre and ultimately Cork Opera House. He would go on to accomplish just that feat with Damien Rice, Declan O’Rourke and Mundy.
That, though, was all in the future. In the short term he set about organising another Lobby gig for Mic. They agreed on a November date. Shortly afterward Christopher called full of apologies. He’d written some months previously to Mike Scott of the Waterboys, enclosing a copy of the Heyday EP. And now Scott had responded and offered him the support slot for an upcoming Waterboys tour of the Continent.
This was a big opportunity for Christopher, who had pressed new copies of Heyday to sell on the road. It would, however, mean putting back the Lobby show until December. Conway happily agreed, knowing how much it meant to Christopher to play with the Waterboys.
“The Waterboys were his idols so to be invited to tour with them was incredible,” agrees Maureen Christopher. “There were obviously some nerves, too. But the tour was going so well for him prior to the accident. He'd call me every few days, often to get me to top up his phone credit. But also to fill me in on how it was all going.
“We were actually planning to meet up at the Hamburg gig on November 30th, the night after he died. He was due to have a few days off after that gig. And, as I'd worked in Hamburg, we decided we would hang out for a few days there before he was due to go back to the tour.
Tragically he never reached Hamburg. On November 16, having opened for The Waterboys at the 1,200 capacity De Oosterpoort cultural centre in Groningen, Christopher was found unconscious on some steps. He’d apparently had a fall and struck his head. Suffering swelling to the brain he passed away on November 29 aged 32. As they negotiated the shock of his death, his family and friends rallied around to ensure his legacy endured. And in November 2002, thanks to their efforts, his album, Skylarkin was released – and went on to win Best Album at the 2003 Meteors. Heyday, his anthem, has meanwhile clocked up more than a million streams.
“He was a lovely quiet guy and very popular,” says Conway. who bid a regretful farewell to the Lobby when the bar shut in 2005. “His songs were ultimately very catchy. A lot of the people who played the lobby around then all went on to play the Opera House. And Mic, unfortunately, didn’t.”
- Live At The Lobby is available on vinyl from https://dublinvinyl.com
