VIDEO'S OF THE WEEK - GARY MOORE-Special

[Niels (Mod)]

VOTW - GARY MOORE Special

Here's another musician, that deserves a special in my VOTW. And another one of those artists, that have been around a bit, and therefore an interesting choice for VOTW. I saw Moore live once back in June 1986, as a special guest before the headliners, Queen. I can't remember much from that performance other than I thought "Wow, I'm seeing Gary moore live", since it was raining insanely. At that time, I was a fan of his solo-stuff, and loved his current album "Run for Cover", and I would also love the following album "The Finla Frontier", but then as many times before and after, I got tired of the same kind of music, and did only "return" as a listener when he made his first Blues-album (never bought it, though, but got it as a present for my birthday). But before all that, I did also know Moore from the Thin Lizzy-album "Black Rose", that I bought in the spring of 1979, but then, he was only "a replacement for the great Brian Robertson" for me, but off course I could hear, he was a good replacement, and it turned out, that he had been in Lizzy before that, and knew Lynnott from far back in time.

SKID ROW - UNCO-OP SHOWBAND BLUES

Skid Row was a Dublin based blues rock band of the late 1960s and early 1970s, fronted by Brendan "Brush" Shiels. It was guitarist Gary Moore's first professional band. This one is from the debut-album, "Skid" released in October 1970.

COLOSSEUM II - INQUISITION

Colosseum II was a British band formed in 1975 by the former Colosseum drummer and leader, Jon Hiseman, following the 1974 demise of his band Tempest. Hiseman announced his plan to form the band eventually named Colosseum II in November 1974, but only Gary Moore was named as a member. Rehearsals were due to begin on January 1, 1975, but a permanent unit was not finalised until May 1975. Among musicians who almost made the group were Graham Bell, Duncan Mackay and Mark Clarke. The line-up was completed by Don Airey, Neil Murray and Mike Starrs.The band was oriented toward jazz fusion, much of which was driven by the guitar work of Moore, leading to a much heavier sound than the original Colosseum band. After disappointing sales of the first album, Murray and Starrs were unceremoniously sacked by the band's record label (Bronze) in July 1976.The band continued with a new record label and a new bass player (John Mole), and recorded two further largely instrumental (and still commercially unsuccessful) albums. They also performed on Variations with Andrew Lloyd Webber, which also featured Julian Lloyd Webber on cello, Rod Argent on keyboards and Hiseman's wife, Barbara Thompson, on flute and sax. This album reached number 2 on the UK charts.In August 1978, Moore left to rejoin Thin Lizzy for a fourth spell, and Airey's brother Keith Airey replaced him on guitar. Plans for a fourth album fell through when Don Airey decided to join Rainbow in December 1978.

THIN LIZZY - DO ANYTHING YOU WANT TO

In 1974 he re-joined his old friend Lynott, when he first joined Thin Lizzy after the departure of founding member Eric Bell. From 1975 to August 1978, he was a member of Colosseum II. With the band he also collaborated with Andrew Lloyd Webber on the composer's Variations album in 1978.

In 1977, Moore re-joined Thin Lizzy, first as a temporary replacement for Brian Robertson, and on a permanent basis a year later, and recorded the classic "Black Rose" with the band in 1979.

GARY MOORE - EMPTY ROOMS

In July 1979, he left the band permanently to focus on his solo career, again with help from Phil Lynott. I remember seeing the video for Empty Rooms on TV in 1984, the first time thinking, that Moore had potential as a solo-artist. That song/sing eventually ended up on the very good 1984-album "run for Cover".

GARY MOORE - RUN FOR COVER/REACH FOR THE SKY

Run For Cover is an album by Gary Moore, released in 1985, and is often considered as Gary Moore's breakthrough album.

The album includes a remake of the hit single "Empty Rooms" (UK #23), one of Moore's biggest successes, and top 5 single "Out in the Fields", the album's biggest selling single.

The album features many of Moore's friends including Deep Purple bassist/vocalist Glenn Hughes, Paul Thompson of Roxy Music and Phil Lynott from Thin Lizzy. Lynott and Moore trade vocals on "Out in the Fields", while Lynott sings vocals on "Military Man", an old Grand Slam track, alone. Lynott also provided vocals for a re-recording of the Thin Lizzy classic "Still in Love with You" (on which Moore originally played guitar); the track was initially only issued as a single B-side but is included on later remastered versions of the album. I end my VOTW here, becuase for months back, I posted a video from the last good Moore-album (The Final Frontier) from 1987 in VOTW Bob Daisly-special, and beyond that, i'm not really a fan of Moore's work.

[RJhog (Admin)]

I never got into Gary Moore at all when I was younger.  As a matter of fact, the only song I was even familiar with before I met up with all of you guys here at CRB was Still Got The Blues.  That is a tremendous song, definitely my favorite strait up blues song ever.  It seem's like you've featured Moore before, but maybe I'm wrong.

Skid Row - The video is typical of that psychedelic era.  I would call his soloing here a shred fest.  The song itself does nothing for me, and I find it hard to believe that you, Niels, would "waste your time" as you like to say, with a disjointed free form jam like this.  The vocals aren't good.  It's pretty heavy though.

Inquisition - You say this is jazz fusion.  Maybe, but it sounds like straight up prog to me.  It's a pretty dang good instrumental if you ask me.  And you know I'm not a big fan of those.  Moore shines very brightly here.  And I love how he switches over to acoustic, then back to electric.  That is really cool.

Lizzy - Not much to be said here.  Lizzy is a band I still want to delve into.  And I will eventually.  Somewhat cheesy video, which is again typical of the time period, but cool in this case cause it's Lizzy.  Another cool song.

Empty Rooms - Man, talk about a slice of that time period.  This song is steeped in that time period.  I can't say I've never heard this, but I can't say I'm familiar with it either.  Obviously, I need to pick up this album.  I totally dig this song.  I love songs like this.  Terrific melodic rock, and somewhat of a power ballad.  And the video is not cheesy, which isn't normal for this time frame.  It helps that he doesn't look strait at the camera and pout.

Run/Reach - Good performance.  The audio track doesn't match up with the video track, especially on the first song.  All in all, a good live performance.  

Good stuff Niels.  Gary Moore and Thin Lizzy are on my list of needs.

[Niels (Mod)]

Well, I did post a Gary Moore-video in at least one of the former VOTW's, and I'm not saying, I'm running out of ideas yet, just that there might be more "crossovers" in the following VOTW's..

[Niels (Mod)]

Oohh, but I do like "Skid Row" (not the Sebastian Bach-crap), becuase it's Heavyyy, and from a great time in the music-history, but you're right, I probably wouldn't listen too many times, until it would bore me.

[Scott]

SKID ROW ...  That bass player stinks and sounds out of tune, just callin' it for what it is.  Tune isn't very interesting, but Moore's outfit is hilarious!

COLOSSEUM II ... At least its more interesting than Skid Row.  The sound suffers quite a bit on this video, the bass disappears totally at times.  And I hear the jazz fusion you mention more than prog for me.  But its just a play as fast as you can tune. 

THIN LIZZY ...  YES!!!  Cool album and from the sound of the first two songs it really worked to get him in band that could A) Write good songs, B) harness his talent instead of shredding constantly, and 3) dress him like a guitar player!

EMPTY ROOMS ...  Again, harnessed and reserved compared to the first two videos.  This time it seems to be more of an effort to hit the mainstream than a continuation of a rock and roll band.

RUN FOR COVER/REACH FOR THE SKY... Gotta say, with the exception of Thin Lizzy, the songs aren't very interesting.  Lyrically cliché and the chorus are all flat.  He should've stuck with Lynott!

Still an interesting post, but not for me...

[Niels (Mod)]

I agree, that the songs from "Run For cover" doesn't sound as good nowadays, as they did in 1985. Except for Empty Rooms (and Out In The fields), which always was a favorite of mine.