It’s no secret that Gary Moore’s relationship with Thin Lizzy was troubled, to say the least – with the band’s well-documented substance abuse and its impact on their performances being one of the main points of contention.
In July 1979, Moore famously stormed off stage mid-tour after the band’s set in front of 63,000 people at San Francisco’s Day On The Green Festival. While the departure may have come as a surprise to many, Moore had already decided that, frankly, he had had enough.
“It got to the point where the party after the show was more important than the show itself,” Thin Lizzy guitarist Eric Bell tells Classic Rock in a new interview. And, when vocalist Phil Lynott became so wasted that he couldn’t remember the lyrics, Moore decided it was time to jump ship.
As Bell puts it, “There was never any half-measures with Gary. Such a nice guy on our own, laughing and joking. But if he didn’t like something he’d soon tell you to fuck off.” Beyond the substance abuse, drummer Brian Downey notes another key factor that strained the band’s internal dynamics.
“Gary always hogged the stage,” he says. “Even in Thin Lizzy. Phil was the leader – except when Gary joined. Now it was like we had two leaders, which wasn’t very clever.”
Following Moore’s sudden departure, the band was left without a guitarist – in the middle of a very crucial US tour – and, in dire need of another six-stringer, gave an unlikely contender a call: Midge Ure.
“(Lynott) said, ‘Gary Moore is out of the band. We’re doing this tour; could you come over tomorrow?’” Ure recalls in a recent Guitar World interview. “My initial reaction was, ‘You’ve got the wrong number. I’m not the guy you should be asking.’
“I went back to my little flat and there was a plane ticket, a bunch of cassettes, a setlist, and an itinerary saying, ‘A car will pick you up in the morning and take you to Heathrow.’ I found out they’d put me on Concorde, so I had no time to learn any of the songs!”
Ure wasn’t the last guitarist to join Thin Lizzy’s revolving-door lineup. In fact, the band has had 15 guitarists in total – from co-founder Eric Bell to the most recent addition, Damon Johnson.
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