Thin Lizzy Newcastle City Hall 1st May 1980
Gary Moore had no sooner joined Thin Lizzy than he decided to leave. The switching guitarists wasn’t the only problem for the band at the time; Phil and Scott were increasingly using hard drugs. Scott Gorham speaking to the Daily Mail “as to why we did it, I can’t give you a simple answer….Some bands take drugs to get high. Others do it to beat the boredom….. people soon became concerned, especially about Phil. Our management would sneak into our hotel rooms and flush the drugs down the toilet.’
Moore’s replacement was Snowy White, a fine bluesy guitarist who had played with Peter Green and Pink Floyd. Snowy: “…. I bumped into Scott….. he remembered me because he’d come to see the Animal’s tour in Madison Square Garden a few months previously… he…said, “Wow man, we’re looking for a guitar player… can you come up and play with us and see how it works out?”
This was, for me, the beginning of the end of Thin Lizzy. Snowy was an excellent guitarist, but it just didn’t seem to work. His blues style, his quiet manner and his on stage persona just didn’t fit with the wild rock image of the rest of the band, or his predecessors. Don’t get me wrong, Snowy White, was, and is, an excellent guitarist, but he wasn’t right for Lizzy.
The new line-up recorded Chinatown, Lizzy’s tenth studio album, which was good, but not one of their best records. The release of the new album was preceded by the hit single “Killer on the Loose”. Thin Lizzy went out in tour in the UK, calling at Newcastle City Hall for two nights on 1st and 2nd May 1980. I went to the first night’s concert. It was another enjoyable show, but it seemed slicker and less wild than previous Lizzy concerts. Sadly the classic years had passed. 
Support came from The Lookalikes – a power pop band from Dublin. The highlight of the concert was when former Lizzy guitarist Brian Robertson joined the band for the encore, playing on Emerald and Rosalie. Apparently Robbo’s new band Wild Horses had a gig at Newcastle Poly the following night. The appearance of Robbo was reciprocated the next night at the Poly gig when Phil and Scott joined Wild Horses on stage (now why wasn’t I at that gig?)
Setlist something like: Are You Ready; Chinatown; Waiting for an Alibi; Jailbreak; Dear Miss Lonely Hearts; Do Anything You Want To; Don’t Believe a Word; Got To Give It Up; Still in Love With You; Sweetheart; Cowboy Song; The Boys Are Back in Town; Suicide; Sha La La
Encore: Sugar Blues, Baby Drives Me Crazy, Rosalie, Emerald
Thanks to John for the image of his Chinatown poster.
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