Clannad in concert: In a Lifetime

Legendary Irish electric celtic quartet Clannad’s final farewell tour, In a Lifetime, which began in March 2020, was soon interrupted, first by COVID-19 restrictions, and again when co-founding band member Noel Duggan, while out to dinner, collapsed and died suddenly of a heart attack in mid October 2022.

The band’s tour resumed in late November, with three of its original members: brothers Pól and Ciarán Brennan and their sister Moya Brennan.  Along with Moya mostly on lead vocals and harp, Pól juggling a range of instruments — guitar, flute, tin whistle, keyboard, and vocals — and Ciarán on double bass, guitar, keyboard, and vocals, the three siblings were joined for their Australian tour by Moya’s daughter, Aisling Jarvis, on guitar, bouzuoki, and vocals, and son, Paul Jarvis, on keyboard and vocals; and by longstanding member Ged Lynch, on drums and percussion.

The show was in many ways a retrospective of Clannad’s musical history, from the first song the band ever played on stage, in 1970, to a couple of songs not even recorded yet, making the programme broader even than the In a Lifetime anthology the band released in conjunction with the tour.  Clannad fans will be sure to hear a few of their favourites once again, but a discography spanning half a century makes it all but certain that some favourites will be missing even from a concert of two and a half hours.

The haunting mood of the concert’s first half began changing toward the interval, after which the volume, which had been perfect, steadily crept up, with the odd result that the vocals lost some presence and left an impression that the performers were unable to hear one another well.

Nonetheless, the band’s practised professionalism and familiarity with its material, even its newest songs, ensured a performance that evoked Clannad fans’ most cherished memories of Clannad’s disparate discography — by turns ethereal, humorous, defiant, even rocky in its Celtic spirit.  And fine musicianship brought that spirit to undeniable life: Moya’s voice, still astonishingly pure five decades on, and the celestial effect of her gorgeous playing on the harp; Pól’s fancy flute work, reminiscent of fast Irish dance; Ged Lynch’s refined, precise drumming; and the steady fingerwork of three fine string players, all supporting that distinctive original sound of the ensemble’s vocal harmonies.  Clannad’s is an act difficult to follow.

Though plainly ready to produce more music in the studio, Clannad is unlikely to tour again.  Its In a Lifetime tour is a fitting farewell to audiences whom it has moved and inspired for two generations, and it’s a farewell I’ll always be glad I attended.

John P. Harvey

IMAGE: Clannad, performing on its In a Lifetime farewell tour.