Live in Europe

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KEYCHAIN a tough modern blues, features the Man in fine vocal scatting mood over his slide guitar. On this particular performance, I recall Rory stretching and bending his guitar strings to the limit of their tolerance, causing the tuning of the instrument to alter dramatically. The debut album had been poorly received in some quarters (American journalist Lester Bangs had described it as “one of the most noticeably vacuous releases of the season”), instigating a fractious relationship with the press. But, crucially, both the record and the live show had connected with the public. I didn’t and went out on my own.” It was probably the best move he ever made. There were in fact two Tastes. Rory was the one common factor in both. But although Taste had always played Rory’s songs, they never somehow quite played his music.

Gallagher’s lifestyle eventually caught up with him. On 14 June, 1995, the guitarist died from complications following a liver transplant made necessary by his reliance on alcohol and pills. He was buried in Ballincollig, near Cork City. Thousands of people lined the streets of Cork to bid him farewell with an ovation. The resulting album, Irish Tour ’74, remains the highlight of Gallagher’s career. Recorded in Belfast, Dublin and Cork, it finally nailed his live performances on vinyl.Not one to drag his heels, Gallagher moved fast. In January 1971, the trio got acquainted via series of intense jams in small basement rehearsal room in Fulham. By late February, they were in the studio, recording Gallagher’s first, self-titled album. If Rory was feeling pressured to prove himself after the demise of Taste, he wasn’t letting on, even to his bandmates. Like every young Irish musician who came of age in the early 60s, Gallagher served his apprenticeship on the showband circuit, playing covers of popular hits. I only joined a showband because there was nowhere else to go with an electric guitar,” he later explained.

Despite such bravado, it could have been a huge risk. As a high-profile musician, Gallagher was a potential target, and the fact that there were Englishmen on their crew didn’t do anything to lessen the risk. Gerry McAvoy’s own family had moved to England after his father was nearly killed in a bomb blast. But Gallagher opted to plough on regardless. Maybe it was time for a change, I don’t know,” says Martin. “I couldn’t get into his head and what he was thinking about.”By the time Rory Gallagher was released in May 1971, the trio had played their first live shows, a series of dates in Europe. The first gig, at Paris’s Olympia Theatre, was sold out and filmed for French TV. Other shows in were less successful. Rather than live versions of his most popular songs, there are only two songs on the album that were previously recorded by Gallagher in the studio, "Laundromat" from his first album and "In Your Town" from his Deuce album. All the other songs are Gallagher's versions of classic blues songs. The album starts with what was to become a signature song for Gallagher, Junior Wells' "Messin' With the Kid". The song "I Could've Had Religion" was Gallagher's salute to what he called the "redemption style blues" of the Robert Wilkins and Gary Davis. After hearing the song on this album Bob Dylan expressed interest in recording it and assumed it was a traditional blues number rather than an original song by Gallagher. [2]

Time to boogie. BOUGHT AND SOLD with its lovely unison between guitar and voice, ends with melodic touches of its sister song ‘Lost at Sea’ from the album ‘Against the Grain’. After sharing a festival bill in Berlin with Rory, Stuart Copeland (then with Curved Air) was so overwhelmed with the live impact of Rory’s trio, that he left that band and formed a trio which he called The Police. For some time Rory had wanted to capture the adrenaline and excitement of his live performances. Whilst touring extensively in Europe he decided to record his shows. The results were little short of phenomenal and Live! in Europe earned Rory his first gold disc. Amazingly we were cleared,” recalls McAvoy, who remains convinced that the drugs had been planted. “But Rory didn’t know about it.” To the immense relief of the rhythm section, they made it to America unmolested by the law. As well as introducing Gallagher to a new market, their US dates – where they played with Little Feat and Frank Zappa– opened the band’s eyes to the pulchritude that was on offer. But while the band were delighted to find that their crowds were almost 50 per cent female, Gallagher refused to take advantage of the situation. He even witnessed the Sex Pistols’ infamous final show at San Francisco’s Winterland in January 1978.

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McAvoy’s view is that the guitarist was too single-minded in his dedication to his craft to let himself be distracted by women. “In my opinion, the real reason for Rory’s reluctance to let anyone into his life is that he was too simply focused on his music,” says the bassist. In fact if the subject didn’t involve music, books or film, Gallagher rarely connected with his band on any deep level. “I remember once we were having a chat in my room and he asked me about spiritual matters,” says Rod. “He asked me what the Godhead means and the whole thing about reincarnation, Buddhism etc, because he knew that I’m really into that stuff. We were both drunk and I remember him getting quite agitated and storming out shouting, ‘That’s blasphemy!’”

While the sound quality is variable – partly due to the fact that they couldn’t get insurance for Ronnie Lane’s Mobile Studios in the more troubled areas – the album never loses its primal, raw urgency. It’s the sound of a band leaning out over the precipice – something Gallagher deliberately encouraged, making up the show as he went along. He was very up for the whole punk thing,” says Donal. “He loved the whole attitude and it really hurt him when he got labelled as part of the old guard.” His attitude was, ‘If you don’t know my music, what the hell are you doing here?’” says Rod de’Ath. The tour was filmed by documentary maker Tony Palmer, who worked with The Beatles and Frank Zappa. Originally made for TV, it was given a full theatrical release. It was in Belfast that Gallagher began searching for a new band. He soon found two players he could work with: drummer Wilgar Campbell and 17-yearold bassist Gerry McAvoy, whose own band, Deep Joy, had supported Taste. Ironically, Deep Joy had split up on exactly the same night as Gallagher’s former group, just down the road in Ulster Hall.BAD PENNY with it’s swaggering tempo, is a perfect showcase for the three piece and performed live, gave the band room to stretch itself musically. Live! in Europe was released at the end of the British "blues boom" that began in the 1960s. Sparked by bands such as the Rolling Stones, Yardbirds and Cream, fans and musicians were fascinated by authentic Chicago blues artists such as Muddy Waters. Gallagher had an extensive knowledge of this kind of music, although he tended to play down arguments about what was "pure" blues. In an interview at the time he said: Released in November 1971, just six months after the debut, Deuce incorporated Celtic influences amongst the tight blues workouts, notably on I’m Not Awake Yet. Elsewhere, Don’t Know Where I’m Going was an homage to one of Gallagher’s more unlikely heroes, Bob Dylan. Gigging before, during and after the recording of Deuce, the band had little time to celebrate its entry into the charts at a respectable No.39. The film presents a balanced view of the political climate in Ireland at the time, along with the fans’ total devotion to a man who had become a cultural hero as much as a musician. Always concerned with remaining “a musician, not a politician”, Gallagher went out of his way to appear neutral on all matters political.