The Concert Room features Thin Lizzy in the Tower Theater - “Jailbreak” October 20 1977!

Hey everybody, welcome back to the concert room. I'm your host, Bob Hill. The concert room is a podcast session dedicated to concert performances, performers, bands, and artists who played on the stage at the legendary Philadelphia Spectrum Arena and all of the surrounding venues in the Philadelphia area back in the heyday years of concerts and shows. And today we're going to feature one of my favorite bands, especially live, and that is Thin Lizzie. Thin Lizzie is a legendary Irish rock band formed in Dublin in 1969.

The band initially consisted of bass guitarist, lead vocalist, and principal songwriter Phil Linet and drummer Brian Downey. They are two of the founding members of Thin Lizzie. And they met while at school in Dublin in the early 60s. Now Thin Lizzie went through many different iterations and lineups. The one constant was always the rhythm section of Linet and Downey. Uh and this band also featured many prominent guitar players. Thin Lizzie was influential as far as the two-guitar attack uh on a lot of bands uh that took that two-guitar attack uh later in the 70s and of course the eighties, and I'm thinking of uh Iron Maiden, of course, and and Judas Priest and uh Metallica.

But most notably Thin Lizzie featured some great uh guitar players, uh two of them, uh the legendary Irish Blues rock guitarist from Belfast Gary Moore, and then later John Sykes. John went on to play in the eighties for such bands as Whitesnake, Tigers of Pantang, and Blue Murder. He was really a great versatile uh guitar player and highly respected in the rock and uh slash metal community. Uh John actually joined Finn Lizzie with Downey after Phil's death, but they were also touring under Finn Lizzie.

So, as I said, uh even after Phil Linet's death, Finn Lizzie carried on with uh different lineups, etcetera. Um and also a tribute to uh Phil Linet. Now Phil unfortunately died on January 4th, 1986, at age 36. And uh as I said, uh many incarnations of the band emerged over the years, but Phil's legacy is really a fourteen-year recording career with twelve albums under their belt. So very prolific and insightful songwriter. Phil was always leaning on his Irish working class uh dramas and themes found in Irish traditional prose and literature, along with their blues rock soul and swing and shuffle uh, but of course it was still hard rock and uh kind of a pre-heavy metal.

So this is why as I mentioned, later bands and musicians credit Finn Lizzie as a major influence. Um I mentioned Metallica, there was also Alice and Chains, Guns and Roses, um, even up to the cure. So Finn Lizzie, absolutely an important band in the history of hard rock and heavy metal. You've heard the singles uh Whiskey in the Jar. I think that came out in around 72. Uh The Boys Are Back in Town, Radio Staple, that came out later in 1976, Jailbreak and Waiting for an Alibi. That came out in 1979, I believe.

These were really popular songs, and they were also international hits, and several Thin Lizzie albums reached the top ten in the UK, so they had a lot of success. Which now brings us to one of those albums. And a great performance I've queued up for today's show. I'm gonna get to that in just a minute. Uh but they put out a live album called Live and Dangerous in June of 1978. Live album. Um now there's some disagreement over just how much of the album is actually recorded live. Uh, you know, back then um a lot of times bands would record an album at different venues, they'd listen to the tapes and then they'd uh pick out maybe one or two of the best performances from each night.

But if there was something wrong and they couldn't get their performance quite right, it wasn't unusual for a man to go into the studio and do some overdubs, maybe some vocals, maybe a guitar solo, uh drums, who knows. But that seemed to be uh kind of the norm back then, and I think we can look at uh Kiss Alive as an example also. So it wasn't unusual. But regarding this album, Live and Dangerous, released in June 1978, there seems to be a lot of issues of and back and forth of how much this album is recorded and also overdubbed and exactly which parts are re-recorded, etc. A few parties involved, um they all kind of dispute one another, and that includes, you know, the guitar players and also the producer uh Tony Visconti.

But listen, all agreed there was overdubbing in the studio, however, the album was a huge success, reaching number two in the UK, and it was actually ranked as the best live album of all time by Classic Rock magazine in 2004. So this is basically what happened. Uh the reason why they put this out is because instead of recording and releasing an album with producer Tony Visconti, from what I understand, he just didn't have the time to fit in, you know, another studio album, so a live album was decided instead.

And the band in Visconti listened to over uh about thirty hours of archive recordings looking for the best performances. Now here's where it kinda gets kind of weird because the album sleeve notes uh a credit of two concerts as its source. Uh the one concert is at the Hammersmith Odeon in London. That performance was on November 14th, 1976, and then Seneca College Field House in Toronto, Canada. That performance was on October 28, 1977. However, Visconti also confirmed that there were two particular shows in Philadelphia that were recorded on October 20th and October 21st, 1977, and kind of research shows that parts of these uh two shows were also a source for the album.

So not only do we have an issue of going back and forth with uh you know re-editing and and redubbing and uh you know sweetening this live album, Live and Dangerous, but now we also have some kind of issue or debate about the album's actual two concerts or the actual concerts as its source. We know it's Hammersmith Odian, Seneca College, but of course there are two shows in Philadelphia that were recorded in 1977, and that's what I want to concentrate on today's show. Now take a wild guess where these shows were held in Philadelphia.

And that's right, we're back at the legendary Tower Theater in Upper Derby PA, and if you're familiar with my podcast and past shows, I frequently refer to the Tower Theater and its history as one of the great concert venues in its day. It's uh located, as I said, in Upper Derby PA, which is just outside of Philly. It's in Delco. And uh we always kind of refer to the tower as sort of a little brother to the spectrum. The same acts that played the spectrum also played the tower, and vice versa. If a band came flo through and played the Spectrum Arena, maybe the following year they would come back and play the tower, and a lot of times that was to record because those acoustics in the tower theater were just absolutely phenomenal and stellar.

Um just wonderful. The same memories that we have from the Spectrum Arena going to concerts. All of us have uh just as many memories and can can name great shows at the Tower Theater. Uh the Tower is really just uh just as much as the Spectrum Arena. Um just absolutely a great concert theater. For me personally, I saw numerous shows there and uh at the Tower Theater, including uh Triumph. It was actually second row, one of my all-time probably definitely in my top ten. Um 80, I think 1980. Uh second row at the Tower Theater, unbelievable.

Uh Ronnie James Dio, Saul Jane's Addiction, um just trying to think off the top of my head. Of course, Guns N' Roses, they did it in 88, sat in the balcony. Uh that was just uh absolutely a great show. There was no opener, and Guns N' Roses played for um a good two and a half hours, and it was really an incredible, incredible concert to see Guns N' Roses at the Tower Theater. So uh let's get back. The reason why I bring this up is because this is all tying into my show today and our featured performance because I want to talk about this album.

It's called Still Dangerous, live at the Tower Theater, 1977. This was released in March 2nd, 2009. So after about 30 years in the band's lockup, uh called from tapes recently discovered by guitarist Scott Gorham. These tapes of the October 20th, 1970 show was unearthed, remixed, and remastered by Glenn Johns, along with guitarist Scott Graham. So these tapes sat in lock-up uh for about thirty years. And it's amazing. Uh Scott found these and um he and Glenn went into the studio and remixed them and uh you know, remastered them.

Now the show was recorded and featured on the King Biscuit Flower Hour program. That's simulcast on FM radio. Hence the you know, the pro recordings, and these recordings are absolutely stellar. And uh I think this was kind of maybe released maybe in kind of an answer to the question of what I was mentioning about redubbing and remixing um and overdubbing and sweetening live albums uh before. I think this is kind of an answer to how great Thin Lizzie was live with no sweetening or overdubs. This album is absolutely 100% live.

There are no overdubs uh made to any tracks, so the album is completely live. It's really giving it a raw. You can really hear and experience how great Thin Lizzie was live during this time. Um as far as the spectrum. Thin Lizzie actually never played there, believe it or not. When they uh came in through town, they played at the convention center, which is in Philadelphia, and also the Tower Theater. So I have a really great song from this performance queued up, and it is 100% live, and I can really hear how great this band was, live, unfiltered, raw.

So let's get to this performance. This is Thin Lizzie in the Prime, it is Phil Linet on bass guitar, lead vocals, Scott Gorham lead and rhythm guitar backing vocals, Brian Robertson lead and rhythm guitar backing vocals, and of course Brian Downey on drums and percussion. So killer track, it is of Jailbreak. Here is Thin Lizzie on the Tower Theater stage, October twentieth, nineteen seventy-seven.

Really thankful that uh you know these tapes were found and released. Um absolutely awesome uh that we have this, and again, cannot reiterate it enough that bands love to record at not only the Spectrum Arena, but also at the Tower Theater, and this proves it. Um so awesome, great, love it. Uh, thanks again for tuning in. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you were able to see Fin Lizzie back in the day. I unfortunately was not. I was a little bit too young, but again, I'm just gonna circle back and say, thank God we have these recordings for prosperity.

I can listen to this, and I can just absolutely feel like I am in the Tower Theater that night, sitting in the balcony or on the floor and uh listening and you know, listening to this great, great performance of Finn Lizzie really in the prime at this prime lineup. So uh I hope you enjoyed it. In the meantime, you know, please feel free to leave a comment, tell a friend. We're uh of course subscribe to our show. We're in the middle of season two, kind of on the back nine here, uh winding down. I got some good uh interviews lined up, um and more good performances.

I kind of pegged uh what I want to do next with the performance. So uh really hope you enjoyed these uh podcast sessions and interviews and uh hope they bring back a lot of great memories and uh if you never really experienced concerts or performances back in the day, I hope my podcast kind of gives you an idea of what it was really like to experience uh going to shows and the excitement and the thrill of seeing your band in your uh local venue. So again, I have a lot of stuff in store for us. Thanks again.

I look forward to seeing you again in the concert room. I'm Bob Hill. Take care and welcome

The Program