Thin Lizzy - "Live in Concert 1983" DVD Review (XXL Media)

Thin Lizzy - Live in Concert 1983 captures the band on one of the final legs of their Thunder & Lightning farewell tour and was filmed at Royal Dublin Society Showground on April 9th, 1983. While the farewell tour showed Thin Lizzy grinding to a halt and the tour was put together to pay off the band’s bills, this disc is still essential for any fan of the band.

This 55 minute show was originally broadcast on TV and was filmed with multiple cameras so there some nice shots of the full band and the individual members. This isn’t a big “glossy” pro-shot (by today’s standards) video though as the lighting isn’t always the best, which leaves some shots too dark. Overall, the video has the “feel” of something that was filmed for in-house broadcast rather than for TV. The sound on the disc though is perfect and sounds like it came straight from the mixing board. (Note: there is no crowd noise in the mix).

Performance-wise, Phil doesn’t seem very animated and looks like he is holding on for dear life - there is no trace of the breezy rouge from the “Live and Dangerous” or Sydney ’78 DVDs. The rest of the band sounds in reasonable form but, again, this isn’t the tightly honed performance of Lizzy’s earlier years. Brian Robertson looks to be in great form and John Sykes and Scott Gorham take frequent (but not overpowering) solos standing atop of pedestals on either side of Phil. (Darren Wharton’s contributions really aren’t heard in the mix).



The set list for this show seems close to other shows on the farewell tour though most of the other shows that I’ve heard include an additional song or two. What seems a little strange on this show is that “Dancing in the Moonlight” and “Whiskey in the Jar” aren’t played in their entirety but rather slotted into “Rosalie” and it is almost as though the band was racing against an “end of night” curfew.

RDS, Dublin 4/9/83 Set List:
1) Thunder & Lightning
2) Baby Please Don´t Go
3) Angel of Death
4) Are You Ready
5) Cold Sweat
6) The Sun Goes Down
7) Emerald
8) Still in Love with You
9) Rosalie / Dancing in the Moonlight / Whiskey in the Jar

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Thin Lizzy: "Johnny The Fox" Deluxe Edition CD Review (Universal)

Johnny The Fox was was Thin Lizzy's second release in 1976, and seventh disc overall, which which was written after Phil Lynott was sidelined during the band's US tour with Rainbow with a serious bout with hepatitis.

Joe Elliott commented in the disc's liner notes that he felt this disc was better than Jailbreak but, for whatever reason, the disc didn't seem to make an impact in the US. After listening to Johnny the Fox now thirty-five years after its original release, the disc is more introspective than Jailbreak and Bad Reputation. There are a number of solid songs on the disc (like "Don't Believe a Word" and "Borderline") but many of the songs are narrative-driven mini-vignettes that showcase Lynott's lyrical prowess but lack the 'punch' of the singles from either of the two aforementioned discs.

Disc One is the "remastered" ten track (36 minutes) Johnny the Fox album. The ranging internet debate seems to have reached a consensus that this is the 1996 remaster as opposed to the remaster that was done last year by Andy Pearce and Matt Wortham (as per the CD booklet). As I just had a vinyl copy of this record, I can't offer any direct opinions.

The eleven tracks (38 minutes) on Disc Two are, unfortunately, a mixed bag.

Here is the track list:
- "Don't Believe a Word" (Remixed version)
- "Johnny" (Remixed version)
- "Don't Believe a Word" (BBC Sessions 11/10/1976)
- "Johnny the Fox Meets Jimmy the Weed" (BBC Sessions 11/10/1976)
- "Fools Gold" (BBC Sessions 11/10/1976)
- "Johnny" (BBC Sessions 11/10/1976)
- "Fool's Gold" (Instrumental run-through)
- "Johnny the Fox Meets Jimmy the Weed" (Instrumental run-through - extended version)
- "Rocky" (Instrumental run-through)
- "Massacre" (Instrumental take)
- "Scott's Tune"

The two Joe Elliott remixes are nowhere near as striking as the remixes on Jailbreak. If you listen closely, the songs have a bit more punch but there isn't enough difference to make the average listener sit up and take notice. In an interview with RUNONROCK.com, Joe Elliott described the remastering process as follows: "We started to filter all the bad stuff out and then set about building each track up again. For instance we had Phil Lynott’s bass parts from 30 years ago coming through a 2010 bass amp and it sounded incredible. We did the same thing with the drums. We kept the guitar parts that everyone is familiar with but recorded a lot of new rhythms.".

The BBC tracks could have been the gem of this collection but "Johnny the Fox Meets Jimmy the Weed" and "Fools Gold" are studio tracks that were aired on the BBC (not performed live on the BBC). The three instrumental takes are simply that - instrumental run-throughs of the songs that are pretty much on par with the finished studio versions. These are interesting to some degree (i.e. a longer version of "Johnny The Fox Meets Jimmy the Weed" that kicks off with a false start) but none of these tracks warrant repeated plays. The final cut, "Scott's Tune", is just a two minute guitar jam - like the other instrumentals, no big deal.

Unfortunately, the price point on Amazon ($21.75 new / $17.89 used) for this set is still too steep to warrant recommending picking this up.



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Thin Lizzy: "Live at Indig02", London 1/23/11 CD Review

I’m a huge Thin Lizzy fan but I’ve really started to dislike that various band members won’t let the band ‘die’ a graceful death. It isn’t that I’ve given up on the band but I really believe that the Thin Lizzy name should have been put to rest with the “The Boy is Back in Town” show in Dublin in 2005. Going from memory, at the time of the tribute show Snowy White (guitar) made some comments that Thin Lizzy's time was over and he didn't need to be rehashing the band's old material (you would think I should be able to find the actual quote online somewhere but no luck). I think he was wrong about the Dublin tribute show but…did we really need John Sykes and now Ricky Warwick touring around the world singing “Whiskey in the Jar”. (This reminds me of a time in grad school in the early 90’s when I saw that The Byrds were coming through town. I was curious enough to call the bar and found the band featured Michael Clarke (drums) who was the only original member.)

The current lineup of Thin Lizzy is composed of Scott Gorham, Brian Downey, Darren Wharton, Def Leppard guitarist Vivian Campbell, and singer Ricky Warwick (x-The Almighty) and this lineup toured both the UK and the States earlier this year. This new lineup is essentially equivalent to the millennium reunion lineup (- Sykes, +Warwick) and has more former members than the recent John Sykes fronted lineup but I’m not necessarily sure that one version is better or worse than the other. One somewhat surprising comparison though is that the John Sykes lineup played Don Hill’s while this new lineup played Best Buy Theater in Times Square (and the ticket prices for this later show were too prohibitive for me to go check it out).

The new lineup released two limited edition live CDs from their UK tour and, on a positive note, this version of the band rocks hard, sounds better than I would have thought and Ricky Warwick does a passable Phil Lynott impression. The material that the band covers is predominately from later period Thin Lizzy and is similar to what was on the band’s posthumous Live/Life double CD.

Thin Lizzy: "Live at Indig02" Track Listing:

DISC 1
01 Are you ready
02 Waiting for an alibi
03 Jailbreak
04 Do anything you want to
05 Don't believe a word
06 Dancing in the moonlight
07 Massacre
08 Killer on the loose
09 Angel of death
10 Still in love with you
11 Whiskey in the jar

DISC 2
01 Emerald
02 Hollywood
03 Sha la la la
04 Cowboy song
05 Boys are back in town
06 Rosalie
07 Bad reputation
08 Rocker
09 Black rose

The problem I have with all of this is that this disc breaks no new ground. I’d love to see more live albums like the Tower Theatre 1977 disc but this 2CD set is essentially a live re-recording of Thin Lizzy’s greatest hits by a band with a spotty claim to the Lizzy name, a new vocalist (who misses on some tracks – i.e., he butchers “Still in Love With You”) with a very expensive price tag ($30 on Amazon). I realize that the touring band and control of the back catalog are two different things but I’d rather see more deluxe editions reissues (like the recent reissues of Jailbreak and Johnny the Fox), legit issues of some of the brilliant sounding bootlegs from the band’s (real) final tour in 1983 or a legit reissue of the bootleg rarities series Philip: The Man and His Music.

For anyone who wasn’t old enough to have seen Phil play live (I was fortunate enough to have convinced my father to take me to the ’80 show at the Ontario Theatre in WDC as I was too young to drive), the current live band is close as you can get to the real thing. You don’t need a copy of this disc though unless you already have all of the other Lizzy live albums and are dying for one more live version of their greatest hits.

Check out this fan filmed video from the show and see what you think...



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Thin Lizzy: "Jailbreak" Deluxe Edition CD Review (Universal)

Thin Lizzy’s 1976 album Jailbreak seemed to be one of those seminal albums that everyone had in the late 70’s and the band won over a lot of fans on their 1977 tour down the East Coast (with Gary Moore on guitar, no less) with Queen.

Disc One is the remastered nine track (36 minutes) Jailbreak album. There is an internet debate going on over whether this remaster was done last year by Andy Pearce and Matt Wortham (as per the CD booklet) or whether that version was scrapped at the last minute and the 1996 remaster was used. Regardless, the sound on the first disc seems to have more color and life than my 1990 CD of Jailbreak without having any of the compression that has plagued recent remasters from other bands.

Here is the track list for Disc Two (51 minutes):
- "The Boys Are Back in Town" (Remixed version)
- "Jailbreak" (Remixed version)
- "The Boys Are Back in Town" (Alternate vocals - remixed version)
- "Emerald (Remixed version)
- "Jailbreak" (John Peel Session 2/12/1976)
- "Emerald" (John Peel Session 2/12/1976)
- "Cowboy Song" (John Peel Session 2/12/1976)
- "Warriors" (John Peel Session 2/12/1976)
- "Fight or Fall" (Extended version – rough mix)
- "Blues Boy" (Previously unreleased)
- "Derby Blues" (Early Live Version of “Cowboy Song”, Derby College of Technology 11/2/75)

The remixes are interesting as Joe Elliott (yes, the Def Leppard vocalist) along with Brian Downey and Scott Gorham have re-mixed and re-recorded these tracks to give a subtle, but noticeable recasting of the songs. As detailed in the 20-page booklet that accompanies this set, neither Brian Robertson nor Scott Gorham cared for the sound of the original album so there has been some tweaking, re-recording and rearranging of the songs. The most notable change is the adding of a voice-over and siren intro to the song “Jailbreak” which now matches with how the band kicked off their live show during the ’77 tour. The remix of “The Boys Are Back in Town” is fascinating due to previously unheard lyrics and this makes it difficult to tell which portions of the song are an 'early version' versus remixed.

The tracks recorded live for John Peel show (BBC) sound crystal clear and, while the band doesn’t add anything new to the songs, this recording clearly shows the power of the band on the live stage. “Blues Boy” is a slow riff-based blues jam from the Jailbreak sessions and the live work-in-progress version of “Cowboy Song” (aka “Derby Blues”) also has alternate lyrics from the final studio version and it is simply stellar.

Despite Robert Christgau’s bashing of the album at the time of its release -- “The proof of how desperate people are for new Springsteen is that they'll settle for this--even "The Boys Are Back in Town" is the sort of thing that ends up in Bruce's wastebasket.” – this disc has held up well over the years. (Note: Christgau’s reviews seem so out of touch at this point in time that it was little wonder that Sonic Youth renamed one of their songs “I Killed Christgau With My Big F*cking D*ick” after a negative review from the man.) The clear sound on the remastering of the original recording, a strong set of bonus tracks and an affordable price point makes this deluxe edition money well spent.



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Scott Gorham (Thin Lizzy) Announces In-Store Signing at Vintage Vinyl

Long-time Thin Lizzy guitarist has announced an in-store appearance at Vintage Vinyl on March 4th. Gorham was part of the original incarnation of Thin Lizzy, having played in the band from 1974 - 1983, and he is also part of the current-day "tribute to Phil Lynott" line-up of the band.

On a somewhat curious note, I don't think Thin Lizzy is touring the States and I'm not aware of any new Lizzy/Gorham material so I'm kind of wondering what brings Mr. Gorham to Fords, NJ. Whatever the case, I'll be at Vintage Vinyl on the 4th with my Thin Lizzy CDs in tow. The signing is scheduled to start at 8PM.

Here is a clip from the 2005 Phil Lynott tribute concert with Scott and Gary Moore playing "The Boys are Back in Town".