After three years of performance silence - in Dublin at least - this comeback gig was packed with the Christy faithful of all ages and classes in a venue which, oddly enough, was once mooted as the Christy Moore Centre for the Performing Arts.
Although clad in granddaddy vest, baggy slacks and sandals - and a lightweight radio face-mike - the bould Christy, at 54, remains undiminished as a performer; the brick-built-looking physique pacing around, a bitter rage still powering the percussive vernacular mutter, with its power to move you to tears or sudden, bad-minded laughter.
He kicked off with some dark, angry songs, before launching into On the Mainland which, from ribbing the BBC claiming Irish poets as British, swerved into embittering verses about the anonymity of Bloody Sunday British soldiers ("their minds locked shut"), and a powerful litany of the names of the victims.
Then into that old Mullaghmore song about cement mixers and septic tanks on the Burren; and The Boning Halls, a stark song about the background to the Beef Tribunal, given the full electrifying lash - yet dated material, as he sheepishly admitted. When he went into Ordinary Man, it was like watching a boxer yielding ground.
There were some bleak songs I couldn't place (I Can't Stay Another Day) and some old folk songs: from Liz Cronin, The Good Ship Kangaroo, and from John Reilly, a beautiful medley, sung only with bodhran, from the upcoming album, Traveller.
An hour in, he announced a 15-minute break, and instead launched into the comic surrealism of Rose of Tralee. From there on, it was request territory: Black is the Colour; Daddy Long-Legs, Shane McGowan's magisterial Fairytale of New York, The Curragh of Kildare, etc.
The bile of Move Along, Get Along made me sit up, but by now, we were marooned in the past. Ride On set the place off humming like a Papal visit, followed by Nancy Spain, and, I kid you not, Lisdoonvarna. The second encore was spookier: the marriage-heartener, The Voyage, an old unaccompanied love song, and a couple of verses of One Last Cold Kiss. Gig over, and Christy was down on his hunkers giving tons of autographs.
He seemed genuinely surprised by the ecstatic warmth of the crowd. But although something in him is still rattling at the cage, he needs fresh, raw material on "the Celtic piranha", as he puts it. Certainly, on the strength of this powerful performance, he has the authority to comment.
