Philip-Lynott.com

Thin Lizzy

Hammersmith Odeon - Sunday 14^th November 1976 - NME

LAST TIME I saw Thin Lizzy-was nearly two years ago around the time when they had "Rosalie" out as a single, and they were somewhere between okay and pretty good. Certainly they'd come on a lot since the first time, which was back in '71just after their very first Decca album, and a rather officious representative of  that illustrious company hung a large tacky sign reading "Personal Appearance By Decca Recording Stars THIN LIZZY"

by the, side of the stage.  Back then it was only Phil Lynott's novelty appeal (an Irish sp*de?????) that made them anything more than average.

Then I saw them doing "The Boys Are Back In Town" on an otherwise hideous edition of Top Of 7he Pops and I thought "Jesus, I never realised they were that good before", and I got the "Jailbreak" album and it too was that good, and now there's "Johhny The Fox", which despite it’s lack of any one number, as instantly attractive as "Boys", is even better than that good.

And Sunday night at Hammersmith they were so much better than just "better than that good" ... I mean, if you ain't seen 'em lately have you any idea just how goddam fine this band is?  Offhand, I can't remember having a more satisfactory rock and roll time all year.  Only things that even come close are the Feelgoods at the Hope & Anchor benefit, Michael Chapman's Dingwalls gig and the better moments of Patti Smith's Sunday show at the Roundhouse.

Hear this: right now Thin Lizzy look to be the best band in the country.

The P.A. was pumping out the National Lampoon's John Lennon parody (why fling filth at our pop kids? I thought) and the Beach Boys for what seemed like six or seven years before the lights went down and everybody cheered vigorously and dashed down the front to grab the primo viewing positions.

Then Lizzy materialised in a flash of light, a big whomp and a coupla smokebombs like Merlin in a '50s King Arthur flick and laid down a smoking, pounding "Jailbreak" and suddenly everbody got happy.  A real honest unselfconscious straight-ahead kind of happy that I realised that I hadn't seen in far too long, the kind that seemed to have seeped out of rock and roll so gradually that its absence had gone unnoticed until it came back.

There's nothing more exhilarating in all of rock and roll than seeing a band who have simultaneously broken down both artistic and commercial barriers, a band who are receiving their greatest popularity and acclaim at a time when they are also producing their most powerful material.

Thin Lizzy have achieved greatness rather than somehow stumbling over success, who have seized the time and having found their occasion, live up to it.

That's how Lizzy are these days. Their stature has almost visibly increased, and it's apparent within seconds of their entry. Their stage setting is simple and effective: black draperies with a mirrored Thin Lizzy logo hung in. back over the drums and the band all dressed in variations on a black / silver theme.  It's all just "produced" enough to give things an aura of specialness and rock and roll flash, but never approaching the tawdry and contrived air of most "dressed" stages.  Just as the band - and Phil Lynott in particular manage to stay on non-stop high-energy showmanship without indulging in callow ego-tripping and condescending rabble-rousing.

No way do you feel the least bit manipulated.

They did a dazzling ninety minutes of their best stuff, running through "Rosalie" (the Bob Seger song that's their only borrowed number), "Emerald", "I'm Still In Love With You", "Suicide", "Johnny", "Johnny The Fox Meets Jimmy The Weed," and a thunderous final encore of "The Rocker". Nobody in the band is a virtuoso - though don't get me wrong, they played great - but guitarists Brian Robertson and Scott Gorham as well as drummer Brian Downey and Lynott himself have an exemplary empathy and cohesion which made their overall group sound and consciousness far more satisfying than any of the usual upstaging contests.

Dig : the reason you very seldom see bands with bass-playing front men is that if a band's gonna sound any good then the bassist has to work in really tight with the drummer to hold down the bottom, which ain't easy when the bass player's up front singing and working to the audience and is therefore unable to watch the drummer or go over to him to adjust the beat.  Lynott worked the audience like a champ, but his bass was always in perfect synch with Downey's drums. Didn't miss once, which is what you get when a rhythm section have been together a long time.

Despite the fact that Lizzy are reasonably good looking guys who dress good and keep their hair clean and just- had a thing-in-the-charts-with-a bullet, their audience is still eighty or ninety per cent male, which would suggest that Lynott's amiable and unconscious male chauvinism (in his songs, women can be pursued or rejected "if that chick don't wanna know then forget her, 'cuz the boys are back in town" - loved but not understood) is less attractive to women than the deliberate and shrill chauvinism of Led Zeppelin - who do have a lotta chick appeal.  Maybe it's because Lizzy celebrate masculine comradeship above all else.

Right now Thin Lizzy are top of the heap and they deserve to be there and I hope they'll be there a long time and continue to deserve it. Too many bands react to success and praise and mass popularity by getting stale and sloppy and callous, failing into the trap of believing that the rewards of stardom are theirs by divine right and don't have to be re-earned every time they step on stage or go into the studio.

Thin Lizzy have lived like warriors, their impeccability has grown over the years, and somehow I don't think they're gonna piss it away now.

Charles Shaar Murray