Customer Rating: 
Summary: A lost Genius
Comment: I had the priviledge of seening Rory live and this album captures the esence of his music every time I play I can picture this giutar legend as he should be rememberd.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: 3.5 Stars
Comment: There's little question that the guy's talented, but these blues just didn't speak to me the way I had hoped they would. Maybe it just needs to grow on me, or maybe he's just not my thing. It has some strong moments, but his playing, at least on this album, doesn't evoke those basic emotions that the blues can draw out of a man.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Almost as good
Comment: I prefer the Irish Tour--if you love gallagher, you'll buy both. The trax are mixed differently, where the voice or guitar comes from, but great ol' rock & roll.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Rory's Finest Hour
Comment: I had never heard of Rory until a bandmate of mine turned me on to this album (thanks Ken Smith). We played it until it wore out and then bought another copy. The band ended up doing 5 songs of this particular LP and we went to see him play at the Colonial Tavern in Toronto, Canada. We went on a Monday night and were so impressed that we went back for the rest of the week. Each night, the buzz got bigger and the audience was at full capacity by Thursday night. He and the band were on fire and we were knocked out. I consider this album to be his best live work and is on par with other "better selling" live works (Humble Pie/Fillmore, Allmans/Fillmore, Muddy Waters/Newport and so on). I've been a fan of Rory's ever since that cold Monday in Toronto back in '75 and on a recent trip to Ireland, I stopped by his gravesite to pay homage and respect to a musician's musician. Live on Rory!
Customer Rating:
Summary: Proof positive of the incredible musical genius of Rory Gallagher
Comment: Of the many inanities on the Rolling Stone list of the 100 greatest guitarists that came out with great fanfare a few years ago, the most absurd is this: Rory Gallagher did not make the list. One can argue about where various guitarists should have been placed, but around 65 of the guitarists on the list truly belonged there. But 90 or 95 of the ones on the list must cringe with embarrassment that they were ranked above Rory Gallagher. There is simply no way that one can listen at any length to Rory play one scintillating solo after another and place him outside the top ten guitarists in the history of rock. Yeah, he was never terribly popular and even now is not especially well known to the public at large, but the fact is that he had utter mastery over his primary instrument. And unlike most guitarists, Gallagher was a multi instrumentalist. It is widely reported that when Mick Taylor left the Rolling Stones, the first choice to replace him was Gallagher. It is easy to see why. He was even more of a blues purist than any of the remaining Stones, was a better slide player than Keith Richards, Brian Jones, or Mick Taylor, would have provided far better back up vocals than anyone ever has for the band, would have brought some of the same multi-instrumental mastery that Brian Jones contributed in the sixties, and just generally would have forced everyone else in the band to get better just to keep up.
A lot of guitarists fake it in the studio. They get the benefit of multiple takes, double tracking, and various sound effects. Live albums show what you can really do, and luckily we have two great live albums from Gallagher, this one and IRISH TOUR. I actually prefer this one, however, because most of the cuts here did not appear on other albums. For the most part, he sticks with reworkings of classic blues songs. Unlike many bands, his versions never, ever sound like parodies of the originals (for instance, Led Zeppelin on all their blues covers except the truly haunting "When the Levee Breaks"). This album illustrates something that I think shows just how special Gallagher was: how superbly he managed to play while singing. The overwhelming majority of guitarists shift to a sort of back up or rhythm mode when they are singing, moving away from a kind of counterpoint until the singing stops and they can shift to lead guitar mode. Even a guitar god like Richard Thompson does this (though his "back up" mode is far better than most). What is eerie about Gallagher is how is intermixes his singing with lead playing. He often is effectively soloing or playing counterpoint to his singing, as if he able to devote separate parts of his brain to singing and playing. The only other guitarist that I know who does this as well as Gallagher is Jimi Hendrix. Anyone wanting to see what I'm talking about should just listen to this album carefully, noticing not just how he shifts from singing to playing, but how he is playing WHILE he is singing. This also comes across with the way he can play a guitar solo while also playing the harmonica. Whatever else this proves, it demonstrates his almost freakish musical gifts.
Every cut on the album is nothing short of amazing. Later in his career Gallagher would throttle back ever so slightly on his playing, adding more of a lyrical touch when he played. But here he is playing with almost reckless abandon, though never out of control. The only rock guitarist that I think was better on slide was Duane Allmann and on several cuts here Gallagher shines in his slide work. I utterly love, for instance, the way he shifts from regular playing to slide on "I Could Have Had Religion" while also moving from vocals to harmonica. And while he is equally as impressive on cuts like "Messin' with the Kid" and Laundromat" and "Bullfrog Blues," the icing on the cake is what he does with acoustic guitar on "Pistol Slapper Blues" and mandolin on "Going to My Home Town." The most astonishing thing about the number he performs on mandolin is how incredibly exciting it is. One wouldn't normally imagine this to be the case, but the proof is in the listening.
This is without question one of the great live albums ever released and vivid proof of how great Gallagher was. It also stands a rebuke to whatever morons were in charge of that silly Rolling Stone list.
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