Vicar Street

Greek tragedy, Napoleonic wars, Louisiana bayous and kitchen sink dramas.

Such is the stuff of life in the worlds of Andy Irvine and Paul Brady.

Punters had waited 35 years to hear much of this repertoire, drawn from their landmark 1976 eponymous album.

And judging by the pair’s own delight in revisiting their picaresque past – and the warmth of the reception afforded them by a packed venue – the wait was more than worth it.

Irvine and Brady had ventured to test drive this album back in 2008 at Glasgow’s Celtic Connections.

Their tentative rendering of much of its more circuitous arrangements was an object lesson in the hazards and dangers of conjuring the past, particularly when that past contained such musically and technically complex material.

On Friday night, though, the pair had reacquainted themselves with every single chord change and hairpin bend rhythm, careening across each one with the supreme confidence and thrill of Olympian athletes whose long-held aptitude for brilliance was reignited.

Back in the day, Paul Brady admitted that Andy Irvine's affection for calculus-like Balkan rhythms was a source of envy for many of his Planxty peers (including Brady), but these days, Baneasa's Green Glade– with all its wild and errant pulses – was precisely the challenge that the pair relished, together.

Irvine’s hurdy gurdy wove a loose canvas beneath a sheaf of songs and Brady’s voice soared, belying his six-some decades on this planet.

Even his very occasional faltering steps were greeted by the pair with wry smiles, as they criss-crossed a musical landscape peppered by such gems as Bonny Woodhall, As I Roved Outand Arthur McBride.

A standout was The Plains Of Kildare, where the interplay on the bridge between guitar and bouzouki was more challenging than much of what has been produced by traditional musicians over the intervening three-and-a-half decades.

Still vibrant – and hungry for music whose rule book Irvine and Brady have re-written yet again.