Gary Moore - still mesmerised by him

BigKev

First saw him in 78, Back on the streets was fab!!!

Voxman

vasselmeyer said:

This is one of my favourite ever bits of Gary playing live. It's from the "Cold Day in Hell" tour when he played "The Thrill is Gone" with BB King. Gary just sits back and doesn't overplay. He plays completely sympathetically to BB King and they trade amazing licks at the end in a superb call and response.

Hadn't seen that before - fabulous...thanks for posting it! 

RocknRollDave

Rocker said:

 The last time I heard GM play, it was in Dublin.  A fairly small venue but he was way way too loud.  Jet aircraft taking off loud.  Luckily Mrs Rocker and I had earplugs but even with those in place, he was still too loud.  Exactly why I could never figure out.

Like most, I was extremely sorry to hear of his passing.  But I don't ever want to hear a guitar played at that volume again.

Last time I saw him, he was stupidly loud, just waaaay too loud. Didn't give the FOH engineers much room for balancing his guitar within the mix, so it just felt like a band playing in the next room and Gazza in this room soloing over it all.
My ears were ringing for days afterwards - and that is no exaggeration.

IvisonGuitars

I'd dearly love to love him but I'm put off solely by having to endure years of Walking By Myself being murdered at jam nights and pub gigs.

....perhaps I should of learnt it better...

viz

scrumhalf said:

By co-incidence I found this on youtube yesterday.

It was given away witrh the "Corridors of Power" album, recorded live at the Marquee. I was there that night, even for the Marquee it was bloody hot in there.

That's the best version of PW - I lost my 7" many years ago and got a replacement a few years back, it's sooooo good. Neil Murray's jazzy bass bit - love it

EricTheWeary

dealmaker said:

My all-time favourite guitar player (helps that I am a big Lizzy fan - no one could play Black Rose like him) - and I could listen to Back on The Streets on repeat for hours, especially his version of Don't Believe a Word. This is one of my favourite videos - manages all this with a broken E string

Who needs all six strings anyway? Rather sad video now as at least three of them are RIP. 

viz said:

scrumhalf said:

By co-incidence I found this on youtube yesterday.

It was given away witrh the "Corridors of Power" album, recorded live at the Marquee. I was there that night, even for the Marquee it was bloody hot in there.

That's the best version of PW - I lost my 7" many years ago and got a replacement a few years back, it's sooooo good. Neil Murray's jazzy bass bit - love it

I saw Neil Murray doing a record signing in Tower Records in London when he was part of Vow Wow, obviously a great bassist but I still feel it was a gig he was given largely for comic effect. 

Blackjack

Loved his Blues work. Awesome!

the saddest thing though is that last summer I went and visited his grave as I happened to be in Brighton and he is buried not far from there. Was heart breaking to find his grave largely unkept, dead flowers on it, weeds and rubbish and generally with an air of it not being cared for. Maybe it's me being a stupid sentimental woman but I found that so very sad. All that fame and talent and now resting in an unkept grave. 

Voxman

Blackjack said:

Loved his Blues work. Awesome!

the saddest thing though is that last summer I went and visited his grave as I happened to be in Brighton and he is buried not far from there. Was heart breaking to find his grave largely unkept, dead flowers on it, weeds and rubbish and generally with an air of it not being cared for. Maybe it's me being a stupid sentimental woman but I found that so very sad. All that fame and talent and now resting in an unkept grave. 

That is sad.  You would have thought that his children and/or partner would have looked after the grave or employed someone to do so. 

cruxiform

I went there myself a couple of years ago and found the same.

Dominic

I find a lot of his music a bit boring song- wise but he was an incredible player with a superb touch and feel.

close2u

I place him in a category along with; 
Eric Clapton, Joe Bonamassa; Stevie Ray Vaughan and latterly Aynsley Lister etc. Musicians taking their influences and inspirations to fantastical places, outrageously talented, awe-inspiring skills ... but ... carried along a vehicle of songs that are mostly so-so, sung by voices that just don't grab me and hit me in the guts. Imho they would have been better off playing awesome guitar in bands with either a genius songwriter (think David Gilmour in Roger Waters era Pink Floyd) or a really soulful singer (think Paul Kossoff in Free). I admire and respect Gary Moore's playing highly. But I can't / won't listen to a full album.

John_P

He was a great player.  I just relearned the solo to walking tonight - plenty of melody, feel and touches of speed and flash that add to it rather than distracting.   It's not even one of his best pieces of work but it's still great.   

Pete24v

I'm a big fan, I actually really liked his voice. He could do the 80s rock thing, and I though his voice really suited the blues as well. 

But it was obviously his guitar playing that was the main draw for me, the man could do it all. I did bear witness to a gig when he was having a bad day, he was angry and it showed. Everything was played aggressively, with way too much volume and gain. But other times I saw him live it was just brilliant. My favourite gig was from the Different Beat tour, he was really pushing himself in my opinion. I loved that album and Dark Days In Paradise. 

AlexHunter

He did albums with guest vocalists quite often - notably Jack Bruce and Glenn Hughes, but he was a stickler for perfection and rehearsal upon rehearsal to get things nailed. That didn't sit well with others so it always ultimately ended up being his. In fairness one of his real strengths was that he could play anything from the records in a live setting, often even better.

The volume was just the way he played to help get THAT tone. He never liked 50 watt heads so it was a 100 watt top with the volume on about 8 to get that power amp saturation but with bite and clarity.

I visited the grave in 2015 and I was just glad there was a headstone finally rather than just a wooden cross. His family live relatively close to the site but I think there's a somewhat obvious and damning link between the state of his grave and how the family treated his partner of many years upon his death.

Ultimately, you could hear Gary emulate lots of players and do it well but I've never heard anyone able to accurately emulate the way he played.

mburekenge

Monster player. RIP.

ennspek

Blackjack said:

Loved his Blues work. Awesome!

the saddest thing though is that last summer I went and visited his grave as I happened to be in Brighton and he is buried not far from there. Was heart breaking to find his grave largely unkept, dead flowers on it, weeds and rubbish and generally with an air of it not being cared for. Maybe it's me being a stupid sentimental woman but I found that so very sad. All that fame and talent and now resting in an unkept grave. 

It is a bit sad but I'd like to think he enjoyed life while he was living it. 

EricTheWeary

On my YouTube for some reason, I have no memory of this at all but I thought it was a nice clip of Gary (terrible air guitar though). 
And if you've never seen this it's Gary and his guitar collection in about 1825

Presenter Neil Buchanan being a bit faux naive as he has alternated his tv career with one as a rock guitarist. 

Rabs

Have you guys seen this before?   (If you haven't you really should, so so funny)

richalderandash

He's one of my favourite guitarist, and - along with the old man - the reason I picked up a guitar.  

Best memory of him is from Leas Cliff Hall in Folkestone.  Some people near the front kept shouting for Thin Lizzy tracks, and he kept ignoring them. They persisted, and eventually he just turns to them, and calmly says, "Shut the f*ck up. I'm trying to tune" to massive applause.

EricTheWeary

Rabs said:

Have you guys seen this before? 

Oddly enough I was thinking about that today. I was at the Caravan and Camping show at the NEC and Roland Rivron was doing a presentation ( he and his wife write about caravanning)although I missed it in the end.