What is your favourite Rory Gallagher album? Live, I think you’d walk many a mile before finding anything better than Irish Tour ‘74. As a kid I loved it and played it very loud on headphones, especially Tatto’d Lady (strange apostrophe) and A Million Miles Away which seemed to me to be absolutely perfect.
That said, Live In Europe and Stagestruck have great moments too, such as Messin’ With The Kid and Wayward Child. Basically all of the live stuff is great, but studio albums are harder to pick. Often a great live artist finds it difficult to translate their music from the stage to the studio.
I enjoy Calling Card and it was when he was touring the album that I was going to Newcastle City Hall a lot and everyone got tickets. We were all going to go together on Beggs Travel coaches, all eight of us, the whole of the ‘rock lads’ group. Rory seemed to be at the City Hall twice a year, he toured so much
It was scheduled for 12th December, school was nearly finished for Christmas. We’d had tickets since September (there was no booking 18 months ahead back then) and were really excited, playing tracks from the Calling Card album most days.
Two days before I felt really ill and developed the flu so I just couldn’t even get out of bed to go. Someone took my ticket. I assumed I’d catch him another time but I never did. For some reason every tour coincided with a time I couldn’t go. It was a strange quirk that I saw so many bands but never Rory.
