Everyone loves Damo in these parts. If he wasn't so suspicious of the political class, he could run for office and would be sure to nail a seat in Ireland's parliament. But then he's better served giving voice to the disenfranchised with guitar in hand.

This was a homecoming of sorts, a series of solo gigs rounding off a remarkable year that has seen him play the Sydney Opera House and support U2 just down the road at Croke Park. When they weren't chanting his name like a football chorus, the crowd sang every word from the Damo originals, 'Sing All Your Cares Away', 'You’re Not On Your Own' and 'Your Pretty Smile', to the trad staples 'The Rocky Road To Dublin', 'Hot Asphalt' and 'Schoolday's Over'.

He smiled and bantered all the way through, and left nothing on stage by the time he'd raised both the roof and the spirits at the end of a high-octane set. There's really nobody like him out there, and we should be grateful to have someone of his ilk in our midst, someone who burns with his passion, someone who tells it like it is through songs that move the mind and the feet. There was something inevitable and fitting about the last encore being Shane MacGowan's 'A Fairytale Of New York'. Damo, after all, possesses MacGowan's poetic gift and his sense of heritage, and a whole lot more besides.

David Burke

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