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The following is a review by Tom Daily of Rory Gallagher’s performance at the Cowtown Ballroom on March 24, 1974. This article comes from the March 29-April 4, 1974 issue of Westport Trucker. Westport Trucker was a weekly Kansas City, Missouri underground newspaper. Amazingly enough, Rory’s concert at the Cowtown Ballroom was one of the “dollar concert” promotions sponsored by KUDL radio station. If there ever was a concert where you got the proper “bang” for your bucks, it was surely this one. The audio recording of this concert is one of the finest bootlegs out there, reaching almost mythical status. My previous write-up of this venue and Rory’s concert performance there can be viewed here: Rory Gallagher at the Cowtown Ballroom – March 24, 1974. You can also listen to the concert on a small music player HERE, or download higher quality mp3’s HERE.

Rory Gallagher in concert with “Tide” Sunday, March 24, at Cowtown Ballroom –written by Tom Daily

The Rory Gallagher concert sold out. We arrived late and had to do the famed Cowtown hop and shuffle until we had staked out a piece of floor for our very own.

Tide opened the show and played a fine forty minute set. The band has added two new members: John Barton on guitar and Becky Reed on vocals. Ms. Reed particularly adds a new dimension to this multi-faceted group. Tide played some gospel, a bit of soul, rock ‘n roll, jazz, and even a country and western swing number. They selected good material and played it tightly. I especially enjoyed Steve Ross’s synthesizer playing on “Stratis.” The crowd gave Tide a good hand and even a few scattered shouts for “More!” A good opening act.

Intermission. Some putrid mush was played over the sound system as the crowd shuffled and hopped some more. After a bit, the stage was ready and scattered claps and shouts began in anticipation. The audience was up and ready to boogie. Stage announcer: “Would you please sit down so everyone can see. I’m sure you all will be standing up again in about two minutes.” The audience sat down.

Two minutes later Cowtown was a mass of standing, clapping people as Rory Gallagher burst into “Messing With the Kid”, a boogie very similar to John Lee Hookr’s “Messin’ With The Hook”. Next some slide guitar on “Cradle Rock”; a slow blues, “Who’ll Be Your Sweet Man When I’m Gone”, and Rory was warmed up and really ready to play.

And play he did. For the next two hours Rory Gallagher played with an intensity, skill, and pleasure seldom seen. His technique was crisp and his slide was sweet. Gallagher’s solo set on National steel guitar was some of the best acoustic blues guitar I’ve heard while his mandolin playing on “Goin’ To My Home Town” reduced the crowd to foot-stomping frenzy. Gallagher’s band, Lou Martin on keyboards, Gerry McAvoy on bass, and drummer Rod De’Ath, supported him well through-out.

Gallagher on stage was a cross between a whirling dervish and an insane machine-gunner. Sweat drenching his face, he stalked the stage shooting notes first at his piano player then his drummer to amaze him into even higher flights of rhythm. Sometimes he seemed to be playing more for the enjoyment of this band than his audience. At other times he would play the audience as well as he played his guitar; leaping, kicking, gesturing and screaming to build the excitement even higher.

After the closing song, “Bullfrog Blues”, we started out as the audience was giving a foot-stomping, standing ovation. Gallagher came back for an encore, “Livin’ Like a Trucker”. The crowd sure got a lot for their dollar. It was a real fine show.

Tom Daily
Westport Trucker

“You have to stick with what’s in your heart,” says Irish guitar virtuoso Rory Gallagher. “We’ve gone through so many big changes musically without ever losing the basic roots–not the source of it. It’s still emotionally bluesy. Rhythmically, it gets quite rocky. In 14 albums we have gone off on certain tangents and tried certain things. I think we’ve progressed. I wouldn’t say it’s the same music as it was in the beginning, but I wouldn’t like the spirit that was there at the start to be synthesized now or commercialized or hammered into something else.”

In a career that has found him hailed as one of the greatest contemporary blues and rock artists, Rory Gallagher has acquired a fan base as broad as his touring schedule. He first came to notoriety with a three-piece group known as Taste. The blues rock band was the pioneer of the ’60s rock trio sound, along with Cream and the Jimi Hendrix Experience.

Leaving in 1971 to pursue a solo career, Gallagher has relied on the strength of his music, not an image, to keep him in the concert clubs and recording studios for nearly two decades. Ironically, it has been within the last several years that Gallagher is rediscovering the essence of the soul in his music.

“I think with the last two albums, DEFENDER and FRESH EVIDENCE, because there was a gap recording-wise and otherwise of a couple of years, it gave me a chance to reassess what we were doing. We weren’t touring as hard as we were, for a while, which wasn’t a bad thing because when you’re doing constant touring you don’t get a chance to assess what you’re doing or what you could be doing–you can’t get a third eye view of yourself.”

“I’m basically a blues player,” he continues. “If I’m playing at home it’s usually blues phrases and ideas. but I’m also quite proud to be a rocker. I like to excite an audience, and I’m not ashamed to rock and roll if necessary. There’s a very thin line between where blues joins rock. Let’s put it this way: If I’m doing a traditional blues number, I do it with reverence. I’m not a rocker doing a blues song,. But then again, if I’m doing a song that is crossing into rock and roll, I’m not going to make it too laid back. I let it rock.”

FRESH EVIDENCE contains, 10 tracks, two of which are instrumental. Gallagher wrote nine of the tracks and produced the entire album. After 14 albums, and a catalog of hundreds of songs, choosing what to include on a new album is not always the easiest task.

“It’s quite hard sometimes to be honest with you,” says Gallagher with a laugh. “People expect the first track to be very obvious. I found that any one of five or six of the songs could have been the opener on either side. That would have cast a mood over the rest. I came up with the best blend I could think of at the time.”

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