Live in Vienna

The death of The Dubliners’ ‘Banjo’ Barney McKenna in 2012 saw the surviving band members – Sean Cannon, Eamonn Campbell and Patsy Watchorn – retire the venerable name before re-forming as The Dublin Legends. With fresh blood injected into the mix by erstwhile Four Men and a Dog stalwart Gerry O’Connor, the new quartet's debut on disc suggests it's very much business as usual, name change or not. Recorded live before a clearly appreciative audience in Vienna's Metropol hotel in September last year, this first outing is a familiar, tried-and-tested blend of rousing instrumentals, bittersweet ballads and crowd-pleasing singalongs and foot-stompers.

With a combined age of 209, Cannon, Campbell and Watchorn may well be past their best vocally, but instrumentally they play with a vigour and verve that few others can match: O’Connor in particular happily displaying the same virtuosic panache and obvious relish for making music. They’re at their best in set-piece instrumentals, and there's almost as much pleasure to be found in the banter and blarney of the spoken asides. Poignantly released the day before the death of The Chieftains’ veteran tin whistle player Seán Potts, Live in Vienna suggests there's plenty of mileage in the Dubs yet.