“And the loyalty award goes to…Rory Gallagher!” As if no time had passed, since those exciting visits in which he calmed the General’s former subjects who longed for live music, Rory Gallagher appears in his usual cowboy uniform, his chubby face framed by his eternal hair, his battered Fender guitar. At 38 years old, marginalised by a record industry that feeds on novelty, he remains faithful to his first love: Chicago blues, played dirty and intensely. A formula that is still working. Among the crowded attendees, some veterans who sigh remembering the Irishman’s first concert along with a crowd of kids who have paid 1,500 pesetas, drink included, and now jump, punch their fists in the air and play invisible guitars.

Rory Gallagher – Sala Canciller, Madrid, 10^th July

A Hot Night

It’s a particularly hot night and inside the Canciller, naval boiler temperatures are reached that incite you to take off your shirts, t-shirt and… oh, nothing else, you have to keep your composure, even in hell. Nothing matters as long as Rory races down the neck of his instrument, scratching the strings with his metal slide, resurrecting venerable phrases from the rusty blues-rock repertoire, barking those clichés about bad women putting the desperate singer to death. A harmonica groans, manes of hair shake, beads of sweat fly, and Rory remains in his place, letting out age-old screams, recalling Chuck Berry (Nadine) and John Lennon (Come Together), squeezing angry sentiments from their classic repertoire.

On the latest album he’s collaborated on, a Yardbirds recording under the name Box of Frogs, he can be heard playing that hippy relic called an electric sitar. Live, there is no place for such frivolities: only his battered Fender and, towards the end of the concert, a gleaming Gibson.

Electric guitar worshippers are still splashing happily when the reporter, who feels a sudden fear of melting, starts to flee. Wailing decibels chase him to the door, good old Rory still officiating. All quiet on the western front.