My live introduction to the late great Gary Moore was seeing him play guitar on Greg Lake’s first solo tour. Replicating the Keith Emerson keyboard parts on his Les Paul, I was bowled over from the very first note of “Fanfare For The Common Man,” and remember thinking, ‘Hey, isn’t this leather-jacketed guitar wailer Gary Moore!?’ I had heard Moore with Thin Lizzy of course, and later, as everyone else, I was hit smack in the face with his killer blues cry hit 1990’s “Still Got the Blues (For You)” single from the album Still Got the Blues.
On the guitar master’s Live From Baloise Session, we get this hit…plus plenty more Moore and his band, Pete Rees on bass, Vic Martin on keys and Thin Lizzy drummer Brian Downey. The quartet deliver a blistering blues rock set on this release from a 2008 concert from Basel, Switzerland. Just setting in and off and flying on Albert King’s “Oh, Pretty Woman” into a then skipping further head into a “Thirty Days (To Come Back),” the band surely pops, slips and slides, and chunks along with Moore at the break-neck speed he sets on the first few here.
Sure, Moore can wail on these faster numbers but when he makes his guitar cry on slower tunes like “I Love You More Than You Know,” a master class in bending notes, “Don’t Believe A word,” and his hit “Still Got the Blues (For You),” which gets the crowd ignited over its first few well-known single-notes, he is at his best, I feel. And one shouldn’t forget how well Moore sings this hit; here he wails vocally as well as on guitar.
Taking off on Jimmy Rogers “Walkin’ By Myself,” Moore and band bring us back rockin’, but then we are out by one more tune, leaving the listener wishing for more. But then again, this is the way we all wish it had been for Gary Moore — that we’d certainly see lots of tunes and performances from him in the future. This was not to be though. Fortunately, we can content ourselves with this brilliantly played concert from near 20 years ago, Live From Baloise Session.
~ Ralph Greco, Jr.
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