As the Aslan singer is laid to rest on Saturday, this fan remembers watching the showman singer from Finglas captivate audiences over the last 25 years
It was the end of May 1997 and I was in the upstairs function room of a pub in Finglas, complete with threadbare carpet, scratched tables and grubby, smoke-stained curtains. I was with my then boyfriend and another couple, to see a band that the two lads liked.
It was the week before my Leaving Cert started and my friend and I still had a lot of cramming to do so we’d decided we wouldn’t drink that night. All around us pints, shorts and shots were being thirstily downed.
The room slowly filled up until it was wedged and the air felt muggy as the windows were left unopened. There were some familiar faces as many of those there were, like me, from nearby Cabra. But I didn’t feel like I belonged. My anticipation levels were nowhere near those around me.
After an hour or so, on stage came four band members, taking their places with small waves to the audience. There were howls and jeers, with the cheeky guitarist in particular giving as good as he got.
Then arrived the lead singer. A thin, diminutive man, he had prominent teeth and eyes that didn’t open much. He was wearing a tracksuit top and well-worn jeans, and was in his bare feet.
The crowd were raucous and screaming things at him — encouraging things, but somehow in those gruff, Northside Dublin accents, they sounded menacing, somewhat threatening.
For those first few songs — every word of which the audience sang back with gusto — I wasn’t at all comfortable in my surroundings.
I felt like I was intruding on a family dinner to which I hadn’t been invited, with no knowledge of the private dynamics.
The singer, still hidden behind those closed eyes, used elaborate little hand gestures during each song, seemingly caught up in his own world. How was this crowd connecting so much with someone who didn’t seem to know they were even there?
Little did I know that night that many of the people here would become lifelong friends and we’d go on a decades-long musical odyssey together. An odyssey that lost its leader last Tuesday afternoon.
Christy Dignam spent much of his childhood in his uncle’s house in Cabra, just around the corner from where I lived. In my early years I knew of his existence — older friends often went to see his band play and neighbours spoke breathlessly about how they were going to be the next big thing.
But it wasn’t until I started going out with a big fan of Aslan’s that I came to know their music for myself. Big hair 1980s rock was my thing and while they weren’t quite that, their catchy melodies and earnest lyrics appealed to me.
Aslan sang about the things I saw around me every day, things other bands very much shied away from: teen pregnancy, drug addiction, homelessness, domestic abuse and unemployment.
However, it was only as I saw them live for the first time that their work really connected with me. As the night wore on and Christy continued to wrap us all up in those evermoving hands, I was captivated. Over the next few years I continued to see them as much as I could, in small venues around Dublin and the rest of the country. Minibuses would be organised to take us to wherever they were playing.
I spoke to one old friend from this time after the news broke on Tuesday. He told me he met Aslan guitarist Billy McGuinness a few weeks ago and Billy introduced him to his companion as ‘the man who has been to more Aslan gigs than I have’. While I can’t claim that level of dedication, I certainly saw my fair share of performances. The Olympia Theatre, the INEC in Killarney,
McHugh’s in Drogheda, Punchestown Racecourse and King Tut’s in Glasgow were among the larger ones but smaller venues like The Royal Oak and the Drake Inn in Finglas, Good Time Charlie’s in Howth, The Palace in Navan, The Imperial Hotel in Cavan and GAA halls too small and numerous to mention were where he came into his own.
To my absolute delight, they were even the headline band at my college Rag Week in 1999 as I looked around me that night I recognised something of the same bewilderment that I’d felt at that first gig two years earlier, but I also saw a crowd slowly won over by a master frontman.
Christy played another pivotal role in my college years, becoming the first person I ever interviewed for an article, as part of our feature-writing module. I asked a friend of mine who was Christy’s cousin to put us in touch and to my delight, Christy agreed to it.
Christy played another pivotal role in my college years, becoming the first person I ever interviewed for an article, as part of our feature-writing module. I asked a friend of mine who was Christy’s cousin to put us in touch and to my delight, Christy agreed to it.
Nervously approaching the cafe where we’d agreed to meet, I had no idea what to expect. There had been much coverage at this stage of Christy’s battle with drugs and I was trying to work out how I was going to bring it up in the interview. In the end, I didn’t need to. He was very open about it, disarmingly so. He spoke about it honestly and admitted that his fight was far from over.
What really struck me that day was how quick-witted he was. The banter he had with the customers around us and the staff was easy and hilarious. I had expected an earnest musician, what I’d got was a man who should be doing stand-up routines.
It was also clear how loved he was.
Everyone who came into the cafe had a greeting for him, a check-in on how he was doing. Not only did he give me plenty to work with for my assignment but he even rang me the next day to add something in for a question he didn’t think he’d answered well enough. As a college assignment, this wasn’t going to bring him or the band any publicity, but that was the nature of the man.
In the early 2000s I moved to California with some friends to do a semester abroad as part of our degree programme. We drank in an ‘Irish’ bar a few streets away from our apartment and one night, we ended up sitting with the owner after-hours and he picked our brains on how to make his not-very-Irish bar more authentic.
Our biggest piece of advice was that his jukebox needed an overhaul there were little to no Irish songs in it at all. Irish pubs are all about the music, we assured him, and thankfully Irish rock was in an incredibly productive era.
In exchange for our intel and a handful of CDs from our own collections, we were treated to a free pint every time we entered. Thankfully, our suggestion that he needed to serve cider and Guinness were taken on board too.
Each night we were in, we’d take our turn at the jukebox and add in a few Irish songs to the playlist. The Pogues, U2 The Cranberries Sinead O’ Connor all got a good spin, but it was the Aslan songs that really caught the attention of the locals.
Seeing us singing along, they’d often come over to ask us who the band was and after a few months, we were no longer the only ones belting out the tunes. So if you find yourself in a backstreet Irish bar near Sacramento State University and spot some Aslan CDs in what must be a by now very grubby jukebox, drop in a few dollars and give them a spin.
Settling back in at home after California wasn’t easy but one of the things that made it so was being able to see Aslan live regularly again. The minibus was still going and I slotted straight back into my seat.
It would be impossible to remember every gig but the ones that stick in my memory are the Christmas and New Year concerts in the Olympia Theatre, a particularly sunny Sunday night in Iveagh Gardens in 2018 and, of course, three of the five incredible nights at Vicar Street in 1999.
I suppose it’s much easier to say the latter is memorable when they were all recorded live for a DVD that I have watched dozens of times since. I can pick myself out briefly in it several times and lots of old familiar faces pop up throughout. The show is a masterclass in live entertainment.
To this day, I still meet people that I only know through our mutual love of Aslan. I’m sure I’ll meet several of them today as we line the funeral route and we will reminisce about that night and many more.
Myself and my partner of eight years have even worked out that we must have been at some of the same gigs, with no idea that one day we’d end up together.
I last saw them live about five years ago, in a local GAA club. A crowd of just 300, a stage only a foot off the ground — at one point my aunt and I were holding a stool while Billy McGuinness was standing on it playing guitar — it was so similar to that first night I’d seen them, yet it felt like a world away.
That skinny little frontman had captivated me like he had so many others before. He was one of us — he spoke like us, he spoke to us and he spoke about us.
I was so happy in recent years to see Aslan finally getting the recognition they deserved in this country. Their albums stand the test of time and 29 years on, Goodbye Charlie Moonhead is in my opinion still one of the greatest albums any Irish band has ever produced.
Christy’s victory in his addiction battle coupled with his straighttalking, no-nonsense attitude endeared him to the public. His hilarious one-liners are wonderful soundbites that will live on.
Though he enjoyed songwriting, Christy’s first love was always performing live — that was what he really cared about, connecting with an audience, becoming one of us.
I was in a bar in Lanzarote on a recent holiday when the Live At Vicar Street gig came on after the band had finished.
From that small bar in the corner of Puerto Del Carmen, I was immediately transported back to that night — every word and every note like a hug wrapping me tighter.
The thought of being there, surrounded by friends and family, watching one of the finest frontmen music has ever produced brings a smile to my face every time.
Rest in peace Christy, and thanks for the memories.
