It's a painful realisation, but even heroes have feet of clay sometimes.
Matt Molloy's first Dublin gig in 15 years was greeted with the rapt anticipation that befits so fine a flute player. Add to that the promise of the charismatic Steve Coo ney, the low-slung fiddle and banjo of Cathal Hayden and the peerless vocals of Maigh read and Triona Ni Dhomhnaill, and it's little wonder that the packed Shelter vibrated with expectation.
But such reverence is better kept for the concert hall than the session. Molloy wrestled with appalling sound problems and a ferocious dose of the nerves, (hindered in no small way by his disquiet at playing with Hayden for the first time, with so rapt an audience listening in).
After a shaky start, he warmed to a set of jigs, The Rose in the Heather; The Rambler; The Countryman's Rambles, the flute ebbing and flowing in near-perfect synchrony with Cooney's percussive guitar. But then the draocht dissipated as he launched into an over-decorous and halting Black is The Colour of my True Love's Hair'.
There was no mistaking the nerves that transformed this gorgeous tune into a stuttering shadow of its true self.
Then, like a lone ranger, Cathal Hayden sidled up alongside and, with a swooping bow, rescued the night, adding a perfect tincture of Appalachian and bluegrass twists to the mix.
Maighread and Triona Ni Dhomhnaill delivered from the get-go. From the lonesome caoineadh (penned by their own late father), Amhran Hiuda Pheada amoinn to the now-trademark Spanish Lady, theirs were voices of the gods, sent to elevate us all to their beatific heights, however temporarily.
After an unexplained sos, Matt Molloy began to settle into the night. Taking flight on The Lovely Sweet Banks of the Moy, he still failed to capitalise on his success, leaving the stage in the more than lusty hands of Hayden and Cooney.
All night long fiddle and flute were like a reticent courting couple, approaching and avoiding one another, finally finding a mutual comfort zone late in the night.
The audience was forgiving, but there was a distinct lack of rapport between players and punters. Not a night to file with the best. More a momentary taste of the vertiginous heights that we know Molloy and Co can scale so effortlessly - betimes.