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Editorial
The Network of Wild Ones is an organisation of Thin Lizzy supporters ... blah blah blah ...
What's in this Edition?
Ozzie drinks Lizzyman under the table Phil O buys One Night Only ... again!! Nick buys out Coallier! Dawny M buys a computer Lennart IS Gorham Hater! Dawn Poole sends email to the group Dan writes-up Robbo biography! Links to the NoWO Web Pages: nowo.com
The main site has loads of archive material: Biographies Discography Tour Dates Bootlegs Chat |
Eric Bell’s Vagabonds of the Western World
- Thin Lizzy ~ The Early Years - 15th March 2001 Alexander’s Chester
UK
Although Chester is 90 miles away from Leeds, it was still as close as
Eric Bell’s tour was going to get to me and so, despite it being a
mid-week gig and having a busy schedule at work the next day, I decided
I just had to drive to Chester, watch the gig and then drive back
afterwards. So at 19:15 I set off with some 7in Decca vinyl, a pen and
a camera. Chester is actually my “home town” and so I had no problem
finding the venue. I’d arranged to meet my brother Eamonn there and he
was already sitting having a pint when I arrived at 20:30. At that
stage there were only about 10 people in the audience - hey but that
was still double the audience the last time I saw this band at the
Limelight in Crewe!! Eric passed by our table and I asked him if he’d
sign a few things for me after the gig - “Sure - No Problem” came the
reply in a heavy Ulster accent. By the time the gig started at 21:30, there was a more healthy crowd of 40 or so and that was fine for the size of the venue. They kicked off with “Two Ships”. Eric was playing his very battered (but very lovely) Fender Strat. The traditional single coil pickups had been replaced during the ‘70s with replacements at the bridge and mid positions with what look like humbuckers. He plays through a Cry Baby wah-wah pedal straight into a Fender DeVille combo - no effects! |
Eric used the bridge/middle position
and switched to the bridge position for the solo, he also used the microphone stand as an improvised slide! “Ray Gun”
followed - Eric using the neck/middle position this time and obviously
lots of wah-wah - and a drum solo was included for good measure. Then
it was “Whiskey in the Jar” - but in the style of Eric Bell! The bass
was a bit on the heavy side here and Eric sings the lines with a very
different phrasing to Lynott’s interpretation. This was a shock the
first time I heard this but I’m used to it now. The solo was prolonged
and odd - as is typical of ER. Then it was Slow Blues, Baby Face, a Rock’n’Roll number??, Return of the Farmer’s Son, Little Girl in Bloom, Hoochie Coochie Man (nice slide!!), Ballad by the Irish Sea, a Blues number ??, Look What the Wind Blew In, Vagabond of the Western World, Gonna Creep Up on You, Gloria and finally The Rocker. A long encore request bore no fruit - the band never returned. The audience wasn’t great. A few were very keen. Most were slightly interested. Some were unhappy. The people behind me were very unhappy - I think they’d expected to hear some of the Lizzy classics and didn’t recognise the earlier songs. At one point I heard one say “i’m going to slit my wrists!”. More loud critisism followed and I was happy when they left early! The inter-song banter throughout the gig seemed to involve Eric making funny noises mixed with incomprehensible chat which doesn’t bring the audience along. He’s not a natural frontman but I feel there’s a great opportunity there for him to tell a few tales about the early days of Lizzy and about Philip Lynott - this would make the connection with the “early days” more apparant and do justice to over-emphasised “Thin Lizzy” on the poster. But they played well enough - Eric’s guitar playing is very raw and very “unprocessed” and his timing is rather unorthodox and unique. But I like it! After the gig I went along to the dressing room and got several Decca 7in singles signed - inluding my New Day EP - and had a chat with the man himself. Er wasn’t too happy with the gig and said they “were a bit out of it”. Then it was a 90 mile drive back to Leeds and to bed. A worthwhile trip! |
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Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing - unless you replace Deep Purple with Thin Lizzy ;-) | ||||||
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