Graham Reid | | 1 min read
It's always interesting having tradespeople around your area. A couple of years ago a bunch of Fijian Indian tilers moved in to do some work on neighbouring properties and all day I rejoiced in the very different and elevating sound of Radio Tarana.
The guys working in the courtyard for a few days last week had a very different station on all day, The Rock at a guess but even if come of it was overly-familiar it was a pleasure to hear Thin Lizzy's Boys Are Back In Town echoing around the courtyard.
Sometimes you can adopt a position about music and there's a school of thought Elsewhere has taken as its own: if you don't like Thin Lizzy you would probably never be invited round for beers or dinner.
Whether it was Phil Lynott's sly appearance, the sometimes poetic lyrics, the heroism of the twin guitars, the drama and melodrama . . .
Thin Lizzy at their best – and there was a fair bit of the other, admittedly – were unbeatable.
Of course there was silliness in there,
as in the case of Jailbreak's lyrics, “Tonight there's going to be
a jailbreak, somewhere in this town . . .”
As a wag at NME
noted, “From a jail presumably”.
But that was also part of their appeal . . . and their double live (in fact, not so live as we now know) Live and Dangerous has often been perilously lose to being declared an Essential Elsewhere album . . . but hasn't for reasons outlined here.
If you missed the former Bargain Buy of the Thin Lizzy Classic Album Collection then this single disc pulls together 19 cornerstone Lizzy songs right back to Whiskey in the Jar with diversions into Out in the Fields and Parisienne Walkways (with Gary Moore) and the live Rosalie/Cowboy Song.
And yes, Jailbreak, Boys Are Back in
Town, Waiting for an Alibi, Still in Love With You, Dancin' in the
Moonlight and other key songs are all there.
And as just one of the two-for-$20 selections at JB Hi-Fi stores here, that has got to be a good deal.
It's certainly a good deal of the much lamented Phil Lynott.
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