Thirty four years ago, I was sitting in a concert hall in Edinburgh, waiting for Steeleye Span, folk-rockers extraordinaire, to take the stage when the support act shambled on. Four long-haired Irish guys carried out a collection of odd-looking stringed instruments and one had what looked like some concoction of shiny plumbing.

Forty five minutes later the crowd went ballistic, Irish traditional music was re-defined for many in the audience and Steeleye Span unhappily took the stage knowing that they had an uphill battle ahead to make anything more of the night. The point of this introduction? Those four guys were a band called Planxty and one of them, Andy Irvine, played at the Folk Club last Sunday.

After a short suport set of Latin songs and instrumentals from Victor Monasterio, an erstwhile Christchurch boy now resident in Sydney, Andy came on with his trademark guitar-shaped bouzouki, his mandola and a bundle of songs old and new, giving us a hour and a half of beautifully crafted music with a distinct Irish accent.

We're now used to seeing and hearing Celtic bands using the bouzouki, an instrument which has developed far in shape and sound from its original hijacking unto Irish music in the 1960's by Andy, Johnny Moynihan and Donal Lunny, but it's not often we get the chance to hear in the flesh someone who has invented and defined a style of playing that so many try to emulate. And here he was at Coker's.

Add in Andy's singing which like good wine only seems to get better and we had a concert of 'vintage' calibre, some old favourites, some new and many with his trademark counterpoint accompaniment and use of quirky East European time signatures. We had traditional songs set to new tunes, a fair number of Irvine originals (he writes too!) along with a couple of fine covers - Empty Handed, by a Greek writer and Ewan McColl's 'truck-driving' celebration. Reynardine, Kellswater, The Girl I left Behind, The Blacksmith, they were all there along with Andy's dynamic solo version of Alfred Noyes' poem-put-to-music The Highwayman.

It's five years since Andy was last here. How long he can keep up his punishing tour schedule at an age when most have retired I don't know, but let's hope it's not another five till we see him here again. In the field of Irish solo acts, it doesn't get any better and how often do we get to enjoy a genuine 'legend' at the Folk Club? In the words of a Kiwi song, "We don't know how lucky we are".