Mark Ratcliffe (Leeds, England)

(This memory was originally written by Mark for a Rory fanzine in 1986)

Rory Gallagher – Irish Centre Leeds, 28^th August 1986

“It had been a long time since I last saw Rory and his band (Marquee ’83) so I was very surprised and delighted to hear he was playing at the Irish Centre as it’s only two miles from my house. The Irish Centre is similar to that of the Marquee, but holds quite a few more people. Rory was playing the first concert there to highlight it as a live venue in Leeds. Having seen Rory many times over the last seven years, I still got that excited feeling at the thought of Rory’s playing again and I was not disappointed neither.

We managed to get right to the front, right in front of Rory. You could sense the atmosphere straight away, and it wasn’t long before the ‘Rory’ chants were echoing around the hall. Rory and his band hit the stage at 9.15pm and launched into a blistering version of ‘Moonchild’, his first words were ‘It’s nice to be back in Leeds after many years’ and 1,000 people certainly agreed, the master had returned! It was straight into ‘Double Vision’ and then Mark Feltham joined the band on harmonica for ‘I Wonder Who’ and ‘My Baby Left Me’. Certainly the blues songs stand out a lot better with a harmonica. We then got ‘Brute Force and Ignorance’ and surprisingly early ‘Shadow Play’ which sent the crowd wild. It was then a new song called ‘I Ain’t No Saint’ from the new album, which sounded excellent. After hearing that, it makes waiting for the new album almost unbearable! It was then onto the popular acoustic set which comprised of ‘Western Plain’, ‘Pistol Slapper Blues’ and ‘Walkin’ Blues’. It was great to hear ‘Pistol Slapper Blues’ again after all these years.

Gerry and Brendon returned and the band went into an amazing version of ‘Philby’ with the crowd all singing along to the ‘yeah yeah yeah’ part. ‘Philby’ sounds better every time I see Rory play it, magic. We were then treated to two blues standard classics: Chuck Berry’s ‘Nadine’ and Howlin’ Wolf’s ‘I’m Leaving’. Rory then launched into the classic ‘Bad Penny’ quickly followed by ‘Shinkicker’ and ‘Off the Handle’ and then after all these years of hoping he might play it live, he played ‘A Million Miles Away’. I’ve been wanting to see him play that at every Rory concert I’ve ever been to. It was like a dream come true. It was absolutely incredible. It was worth going just to hear it. Rory and the band launched into Tattoo’d Lady (another favourite) and near the end Rory announced ‘I hope it’s not too long before we’re back in Leeds again’. I’m sure everyone in the Irish Centre totally agreed with him.

 After five minutes and more Rory chants, he came back and tore into ‘Messin’ with the Kid’ quickly followed by an excellent version of ‘All Around Man’.

It was all over. 2 and a half hours of pure magic. A lot of happy people left the Irish Centre, and even if I was deaf for 3 days after, I would gladly go through it all again, and to think people were saying Rory Gallagher was past it, I think if they had witnessed that concert they would now be eating humble pie!!! I only hope he doesn’t leave it another three years.”