Roger O'DonnellRory Gallagher, a Rock/Blues guitarist released Live! in Europe in 1972. He recorded each song throughout his tour of Europe and then compiled them into a 48 minute long album. The bassist on the album is Gerry McAvoy and the drummer is Wilgar Campbell. The album contains some of Rory’s greatest hits “Messin With The Kid”, “Laundromat”, “Bullfrog Blues” and many more.
Exploring the album
Opening with a Bang
Opening up the album is “Messin With The Kid”, an incredibly energetic song, originally written by Mel London in 1960. Rory Gallagher is well known for this song, with majority claiming his version tops the original artists. The lightning fast rhythm and blazing riffs, opens out the album. The perfect song to give the listener a good idea of what to expect from Rory and his band.
Following that is “Laundromat” another blazing song and original by Rory. This song was inspired from Rory’s Taste days, when the band lived down by Earls Court next to a Laundromat. It’s got a catchy chorus with many highs and a nice breakdown to lows. A strong follow up from track one.
Diving into the Blues
“I Could’ve Had Religion” is our next track, another original from Rory. This is an incredible tune both in recording and live. It’s lyrics speak on Rory almost grasping religion but the female in his life drove him away from it. The guitar throughout is a lot more relaxed in comparison to his previous tracks. Rory uses a mixture of slide and harmonica to give us an authentic blues track.
“Pistol Slapper Blues” written by Blind Boy Fuller in 1938 was Rory’s next choice. Taking a step out of the electric instruments, Rory switches to his acoustic guitar. His playing consists of some very intricate finger-style guitar and rhythm. Whilst this is the shortest track of the album, its not one you’ll forget easily.
A Taste of Home
Keeping on the acoustic run we get “Going To My Hometown”, where once again Rory varies the instrument, this time using a mandolin. Its an incredibly catchy, high energy ballad of Rory talking about returning home, presumably to Cork. It’s a tune created for a live crowd interaction and for me, I can’t help but feel part of the crowd with my foot tapping to the beat.
Turning Up the Voltage
Jumping back to the electric instruments now we get “In Your Town”. The song starts with a big rise and all instruments can be heard. Rory blasts his stratocaster, mixing some slide in there to keep with the blues. This is certainly a track leaning closer to his rock side. This song very similarly matches up to the next song on the album “What In The World” . This song contains much the same characteristics and it feels as though Rory thought of both songs in the same breath.
Back to the Blues
“Hoodoo Man” is a song little less known for Rory, originally created by Junior Wells. It takes a step down in energy with a more relaxed and laid back slide guitar. His playing is leaning deeper into his blues side then in any of the songs we’ve seen previous. Whilst the vocal quality I found was a bit poorer in this song, it still paid good homage to the blues.
A Triumphant Finale
Closing out the album is the most high energy song we’ve got so far, “Bullfrog Blues”. If you know Rory, then you know this song. It would go on to be one of his top hits, played numerous times over his career. It’s mainly slide guitar throughout, with Rory taking little to no breaks, bar the opportunity each band member gets to perform a solo towards the mid section of the song. I feel for me its the brilliant conclusion to a powerful live album.
Final thoughts
This is an incredible album, in both song choice and recording quality, excluding “Hoodoo Man”. I was amazed at how well Rory Gallagher captured the audio throughout touring. The energy across the album is very high and I could only dream of what that would be like to experience live. Rory’s playing across the electric guitar, acoustic and mandolin is nothing short of high calibre and each band member gave their dues across the record.
