I may be a little biased, but on 18 July 1982, rock and roll witnessed one of its greatest moments: when Rory and Phil shared the stage at Punchestown Racecourse at Hot Press Magazine’s 5th Birthday Festival. The legendary Paul Brady also joined them for a jam. Other notable acts that day included U2, Simple Minds and De Danann.

The concert at Punchestown was arranged as a benefit gig for Hot Press because the magazine had run into financial difficulty and risked closing. Editor Niall Stokes called Dónal to tell him and, within 24 hours, Rory had agreed to play. Gradually, Niall added more artists to the bill, but as the date approached, many of them dropped out and the festival looked to be on the verge of collapse.

“Through it all, Rory never wavered,” said Niall, “And for anyone who was there, the gig turned out to be one of the most memorable in Irish rock history with Rory Gallagher and his band, Philip Lynott, members of U2 and Paul Brady ending up on stage together in a spontaneous celebratory end to a great day’s rock ‘n roll…”

The concert was a huge success, attracting 16,000 spectators and saving Hot Press.

In his 2022 autobiography Crazy Dreams, Paul Brady reflected on the Punchestown gig:

“Early 1982 I had a post­card sent to me addressed to my book­ing agent. It was from Rory Gallagher. It had come from Switzer­land where he was tour­ing. Rory had just heard Hard Sta­tion and lik­ing it a lot, decided to send me a card and tell me.

I was blown away. I wasn’t close to Rory hav­ing only crossed his path a few times while I was in the Kult and he in Taste in the mid-1960s. He had since gone to Lon­don from where he conquered most of Europe in his com­par­at­ively short life, while I had gone into hard­core Irish folk music for most of the 70s. It was a lovely sur­prise and gave me a big shot in the arm at the time.

Next thing I heard from my agent that Rory was com­ing to Punchestown racecourse in July and he’d like to hook up, hang and maybe we’d do something together? As the day approached, I heard that Phil Lynott was set to come too, and Rory asked could we all do something on the gig.

The day arrived. I drove down to Punchestown. We met back­stage and talked about how we were going to do it. We had decided before­hand I’d sing three songs: Mer­cury Blues, a song I sug­ges­ted from a David Lind­ley record that Rory was famil­iar with, and two of my own songs from Hard Sta­tion that Rory loved, Bus­ted Loose and Night Hunt­ing Time. Phil was going to play bass and not sing.

The place was packed. Rory didn’t play Ire­land often those days and this visit was a must-see. Phil and I came on in the middle of Rory’s set. My adren­aline was sky high. I star­ted Mer­cury Blues too fast but it settled and found a good groove. I looked around and saw Phil and Rory grin­ning and hav­ing fun, so I relaxed and got into it. By the time we got to Bus­ted Loose’ we were cruis­ing. It was a really hot day. I was sweat­ing so much onstage that my glasses slipped off and landed in the middle of the mon­itor speak­ers at my feet. Not the coolest thing, but I was feel­ing no pain and hav­ing a total blast.

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The day before the Punchestown gig, Rory made a stop at the RTÉ studios for a short interview. Thanks to the wonderful Rob Phaneuf, I’m very excited to share this interview with you all today. Enjoy!