There was absolutely awful news this scorching Tuesday: Christy Dignam has died.
The Aslan singer leaves behind an incredible body of work. Anyone lucky enough to see him perform will never forget the experience. Whether he was in the middle of a boxing ring or at Aras an Uachtarain, Dignam could elevate you if you were standing within earshot and gave him your time.
No wonder then Aslan’s greatest album is Made In Dublin, the live album recorded over three nights in 1999 at Vicar St.
The album crescendos with an iconic performance of ‘This Is’, an anthem that fully captures the despair of 1980s Ireland.
Christy Dignam/Aslan - This Is (Vicar St)
The breakdown is arguably the greatest moment in the history of Irish rock music.
Essentially, Dignam needs the crowd to become his backing singer BUT he also wants to split the backing in vocals in two.
He needs a landmark to act as a dividing line.
Enter the bloke in the white T-shirt.
Dignam directs the audience’s attention to a man in the white T-shirt right in the middle of the crowd.
Do you see that bloke in the white T-shirt? Put your hand up.
He’s the halfway line there, right? That chap there.
The man in the white shirt is fully up to the enormity of the moment and begins to conduct the crowd.
The audience goes into absolute raptures.
Christy Dignam and his audience have become one. Here is the raw, transcendent power of music that many talk about but few experience. Just imagine the buzz in that room after the final notes of that song.
Anyone who's watched this rendition on youtube knows all about the special place 'This Is' at Vicar Street and the bloke in the white T-shirt hold - who was in the right place at the right time - hold in music history.
On the Made In Dublin concert film, Dignam explains the debt the song owes to Annie Lennox. He made the same point speaking to the Echo in 2022.
When we wrote 'This Is' initially, it was a real fast, rocky song. And I had a dodgy chorus at the end of it, y'know. At the time I was mad into punk rock, so we'd kind of gone from punk rock, into new-wavey... just evolving, if you like, but I still had that punk ethos and stuff. Anyway, I taught the lyrics of it were good, but I didn't like the chorus, or the melody, so we kind of shelved it. A few years later, then I heard Annie Lennox, and she was singing the song 'There Must Be an Angel'. (warbles) "No one on earth could feel like this, I'm thrown and overblown with bliss". I thought it was f**king amazing, all those notes in one word. I just thought that was really interesting. So that's where the chorus comes from: 'fee-ee-hee-ling'.
