Sitting in the morning after glow, or lets be honest pissing rain, reflecting on my first time seeing Thin Lizzy last night, I've come to realise why this is a real, full on band, and not a poor imitation a la Guns n Roses.
When this incarnation of Lizzy was announced there were many whingers who complained "Dont call it Lizzy its a tribute band", well the tour is ending tonight in Dublin, and over the 7 weeks its been running I haven't read one single review where the band have been criticised for their performance, or any lack of respect, indeed as Ricky Warwick promised pre-tour it would be done with a humbling and huge amount of respect to Phil, and the show I saw last night was definitely that. The reason for this as opposed to the fiasco that is Guns n Roses is down to something my mate Jeff Walker said, the wealth and depth of material, every song last night was a classic, when you've so much excellent material, and a completely tight professional band doing it, you shouldn't expect anything less than a bloody great show!
Now compare this to GnR, the Odyssey show for the first hour was a pile of shit, the band were indeed a tribute band, ffs one of the guitarists was wearing a top hat like Slash, lets be honest it was only the second half of the show when they started getting heavily into Appetite and Illusion stuff that everybody liked it. How many actual albums have GnR released? How many actual albums are good........now when you choose to play a lot off an album that took 10+ years to record and was badly recieved you dilute a show..throw in stupid costume changes, multitudes of instrumental solos, turning up 75 minutes late for your performance.........fuck that Guns n Roses are the tribute band!
Lizzy, came out, very little between song chat, no costume changes, small drum solo, every song an out and out classic - bloody brilliant! Viv Campbell played the best I'd ever seen him in any band he actually looked like he was enjoying it for a change, I hope this line up continues for a long time, they deserve a good tour run!