Bottom Line Show
By Rory Gallagher


Rory Gallagher, the Irish blues-rock guitarist and singer, packed them into the Bottom Line for his two-night run that ended Monday. But that's not too surprising since Mr.Gallagher, who hadn't been to New York for about 1 1/2 years, was accustomed to playing such larger spots as the Felt Forum and the Schaefer Music Festival.

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Mr. Gallagher's way with his traditional or traditional-sounding material is solid and flashy, and he and his three industriously energetic sidemen clearly gave the crowd a lot of pleasure. He was being particularly blues-oriented at the Sunday early show; excursions into overt rock of the Hendrix-Clapton variety were being held to a minimum. Instead, he offered a rather unvarying succession of high energy variants on the 12-bar for, all of them involving throaty singing and highly ornamented guitar work from Mr. Gallagher and equally frenetic if controlled keyboard flights from Lou Martin.


It was decently engaging entertainment. But as far as this observer is concerned, most white bluesmen have trouble asserting their personalities- either they play the blues and sound derivative or they don't play the blues- and Mr.Gallagher is no exception. It was a loud, hard-working, demonstrably skillful set, but it wasn't much more than that.
John Rockwell

Feb. 8-9,1976  Rory Gallagher   Bob Shaw support act

This article comes from the 2/11/76 issue of the New York Times
Thanks to Danny Karsner for sharing it
reformatted by roryfan


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