Thin Lizzy: Saturday 27th August 1977, Reading Festival

Phil Lynott (bass, vocals) / Scott Gorham (guitars) / Brian Robertson (guitars) / Brian Downey (drums)

This was the second time that I had seen Lizzy, but this time they had worked their way up to top billing and they thoroughly merited it. At the time they were touring the ‘Bad Reputation‘ album with the smash hit single ‘Dancing in the Moonlight‘ and the set pretty much reflects the one caught on the ‘Live and Dangerous‘ double album released the following year. They were great and really got the crowd going, although if you were to go by the music press then you’d have thought that everything – Lizzy included – was a damp squib (you have to be aware that they only had eyes for punk by this stage). Max Bell writing for NME said “I must admit to being disappointed with their set. After the balance and tension of The Rumour they came across as more muted than usual. Everything began as planned with ‘Soldier of Fortune’, Phil Lynott relishing his new-found status as poet laureate of the hard rock generation. Thin Lizzy nearly put on a real show too. They deserve all the success they’ve built, and there’s no question but that they’ve won over the kids who previously swore by the Quo etc. Trouble was, they were stuck between wanting to present a legitimate amount of original sophistication and the roots need [sic] to rock thirty thousand bedraggled punters’ socks right off. They didn’t quite manage either. Flash pods and all, they still have a surfeit of impish charm. Scott Gorham and Brian Robertson are no slouches in the guitar attack stakes and Lynott himself is a great frontman, if not the world’s most gifted bassist. However, their material stretched out a shade too much at times. After ‘Warriors’ and ‘Cowboy Song’ the temperature dropped a fraction, and they didn’t pick up again properly until ‘Dancing in the Moonlight”, ‘Don’t Believe a Word’ and ‘Bad Reputation’ made the fans forget the wallowing and the frustration. They encored in their accepted fashion, to a storm of genuine audience response for one of the hardest working bands in show biz. Lynott had a good corny line in personal introductions and suddenly everyone went bananas for ‘The Rocker’. If I have to see some band giving the people what the people want then I’d rather it was Thin Lizzy than most any other outfit.”

The 3rd September Melody Maker write-up for the weekend had this to say: “On to Lizzy, who also played Dublin. It was their night, and as far as this audience was concerned they could do no wrong, despite the atrocious sound on the openers, ‘Soldier of Fortune’ and ‘Jailbreak’. The band played well, but this was by no means their finest hour. For one thing the set doesn’t sound right to me. It pulls too much off the past three albums, ‘Bad Reputation’, ‘Johnny the Fox’ and ‘Jailbreak’, and ignores some of the better material off earlier albums. Songs like ‘It’s Only Money’, ‘Suicide’, and particularly ‘Wild One’ should have a place in Lizzy’s current live set. The present collection seems too predictably geared to suiting the fans, a “let’s play the ones they know” attitude, so that there is sometimes repetition – with ‘Emerald’ and ‘Massacre’ and ‘Baby Drives Me Crazy’ and ‘Me and the Boys’ for instance. This set does not do the diversity of Thin Lizzy justice. Lizzy must be careful that their own reputation does not overtake them. But Lizzy will survive this imbalance for the present because they are primarily a live band, one of the best in the world. They know how to operate dynamics, as on the link between ‘Cowboy Song’ and ‘The Boys are Back in Town’ and the climax of ‘Me and the Boys’. It was a fitting end to a good day’s rock. Lizzy in heat are untouchable and they were moving furiously by the climax.”

But no matter what the critics said or thought, I certainly enjoyed the band! 👍

Setlist: Soldier of Fortune; Jailbreak; Warriors; Dancing in the Moonlight (It’s Caught Me in Its Spotlight); Massacre; Still in Love With You; Cowboy Song; The Boys Are Back in Town; Don’t Believe a Word; Emerald; Bad Reputation; Drum Solo; Baby Drives Me Crazy; Me and the Boys; The Rocker

Here’s what the official newspaper programme had to say about the band…Phil Lynott and Scott Gorham