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CYNICS can label him an anachronism of the 60’s British blues revival, but Irish guitar whiz Rory Gallagher proved himself to be much more than that, in his absolute demolition of a capacity Main Point mob last night.

Coming on like South Side gangbusters, Gallagher and his quartet revel in volume, but turn it to advantage with their own physical energy. Gallagher himself remains the catalyst, a more-than-competent songwriter with a considerable history of his own and basic blues instincts enriched by a wide variety of guitar gymnastics, as his bass-drums-keyboard band propel each number into the sound fray with appropriate abandon.

VISUALLY, the boys have about as much stage identity as your average punk garage band, each sporting T-shirts and jeans save for Gallagher, who looks overdressed in a plaid, flannel shirt. But for 90 brainbruising minutes, they rocked and rolled in the Point’s pub-like intimacy, building the energy layer upon layer without losing themselves in their own decibelic wonder.

Center spotlight naturally falls on Gallagher, who does everything with it but plug it in. Running down recent originals with a couple of Junior Wells numbers, he embelishes each with rampant guitar soloing, with and without slide, and milks each for all the momentum to be from something like “Messin’ With the Kid.”

As licks fly back and forth, he prances about the admittedly small stage quite actively, accompanying each new riff with a facial grimace. Yet even with all of the energy, Gallagher’s act is basically formula, relying on a rising audience pulse to feed back the atmospheric electricity needed to make it click.

GALLAGHER DOES have sense enough to inject a wee bit of variety into the proceedings, though his lone “soft” ballad still utilized a little too much volume to qualify as such. But he did bring along his National Steel guitar for two fine acoustic numbers, one of them a J.B. Hutto fun blues called “Too Much Alcohol.” His riffs here can scream just as loudly without amplification while the actual technique becomes much cleaner and easier for aficionados to dissect.

In toto, Rory Gallagher can party with the best of them and his show last night may well be the best out-and-out rock performance the Point has seen in many a moon. Call it loud. Call it mono-dimensional. But fail not to call it as it is — a savagely rock-in’ good time.

David Fricke, “The Evening Bulletin”, September 3, 1974

The following is another short and lackluster review of a Rory Gallagher show found in the New York Times. This time around it’s pop columnist, Ian Dove, reviewing a Rory Gallagher and Aerosmith concert at the Schaefer Music Festival in Central Park. The former Times and Billboard music critic shared the paper’s occasional rock ‘n roll concert duties with John Rockwell until moving on to more auspicious work with the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences — those wonderful folk who bring us the Grammys. It was Ian Dove who led the charge to add a polka category to the Grammys back in the 1980’s. If that’s not enough to cause a bit of hesitation, then check out what he had to say about those purveyors of schlock rock, KISS:

It may be overly simple and unpretentious rock, not, so much sung as shouted, but Kiss communicates a sense of fun and commitment to the music (Ian Dove – New York Times, 3/24/75)

With statements like that perhaps Mr. Dove’s reviews should be taken with a grain of salt, or perhaps the whole shaker. So without further ado, here’s Ian Dove’s review of Rory at the concert in Central Park:

The final concert of the 1974 Schaefer Music Festival in Central Park — the most successful season to date, according to a stage announcement — was not without its touch of drama Saturday. In its center was Rory Gallagher, the British rock guitarist, who whetted his fans’ ardor in a long set but failed to give the requested encore. The result was a certain amount of self-expression from the audience — trash and garbage, with an occasional bottle, were thrown onto the stage at the hapless and helpless road crew changing equipment for the following group, Aerosmith.

Mr. Gallagher belongs to the virtuoso school of rock-guitar players and is more than able to maintain the high decibel, frantic sprint toward the end of his numbers, apparently required by such. Sticking close to the simple rock and blues forms, the Gallagher guitar far outweighs and dominates the Gallagher voice.

Aerosmith, a group from Boston, showed that rock fans have short attention spans, however, wasting no time in carving out its own niche in the evening. It was a group that musically had no frills — the second number was an old classic, “Walkin’ the Dog” — and Aerosmith provided a contrast to Mr. Gallagher by stressing the vocal side.

In essence, flashes of virtuosity apart, the evening was another exploration of musical paths already traveled.

Ian Dove, New York Times, September 9, 1974

Perhaps this fan’s reaction to the concert at the Schaefer Music Festival gives us a better idea of Rory’s performance there:

9/7/1974 the first time I saw Rory, he opened the show for
Aerosmith, he blew away the crowd, they kept calling for more, Aerosmith
played 3 songs and was booed off the stage, the crowd wanted only Rory
that night.– roryon.com