Although I was never lucky enough to see them live, I was a great enthusiast of the first (or so) line-up with Luke Kelly and Ronnie Drew as the singers. Last year I digitised all my remaining vinyls, which included "More Of The Hard Stuff", "Finnegan Wakes - Live At The Gate Theatre, Dublin", and "Live At The Royal Albert Hall", and am thus able to enjoy again these three wonderful albums, which in my late teens and early twenties were constantly on my record deck.

I've never heard a better ballad* singer than Luke - his versions of classics such as "Peggy Gordon", or MacColl's "The Shoals Of Herring", or Stan Kelly's "I Wish I Were Back In Liverpool", were almost definitive, in the sense that it is difficult to even imagine them being sung better. And Ronnie's renditions of such as Glyn Hughes' "Whisky On A Sunday" were also not far short of definitive.

For me, although it seems a bit negative to say so, subsequent line-ups just haven't cut the mustard as far as singing goes.

* The word 'ballad' seems to be changing its meaning, or maybe has always meant different things to different people. My 1970s dictionary gives (the examples are mine):
    1) "narrative poem in short stanzas" - eg: "Sir Patrick Spens"
    2) "simple sentimantal song" - eg: "The Rose Of Allandale"
A meaning along the lines of 2) seems to be how it is most often used, and is the closest meaning to my own, but I've also heard pundits of popular music apply it to any modern popular song that has lyrics that go beyond the usual banal lowest common denominator, eg: (I suppose) K T Tunstall.