Vagabonds Of The Western World - The Sound Of Thin Lizzy

How can I leave the town that brings me down
That has no jobs
Is blessed by god
And makes me cry -  Dublin  

And at sea with flowing hair
I'd think of Dublin
Of Grafton Street and Derby Square
And those for whom I really care and you

Thin Lizzy were formed in the Irish capital in 1969 and released twelve studio albums between 1971 and 1983 in all  - the first three bluesy and progressive, the middle six being mainstream hard rock in complexion and the remainder residing within the heavy metal genre. With the exception of three tracks - Baby Drives Me Crazy, Are You Ready and the fourth single The Rocker - their classic 1978 double live album is drawn from the four year period between 1974 and 1977 and the five releases Nightlife, Fighting, Jailbreak, Johnny the Fox and Bad Reputation. The lineup throughout this time being Dubliners Phil Lynott and Brian Downey, Glaswegian Brian Robertson and Californian Scott Gorham.

Live and Dangerous was so incredibly exhilarating to hear as a teenager that I found myself repeating the same opening four-track song-cycle time and time again and found it difficult to ever even get to the second side. This quartet consisted of Jailbreak, Emerald (which along with Horslips' Dearg Doom remains the greatest of all celtic rock songs into perpetuity), Southbound and the Bob Seger cover Rosalie.

Southbound's lyrics prefigure the radical financial struggles so many millions of people across the British Isles would face in the decades to come - it is a genuinely beautiful piece which clearly stands equal to the other three more famous songs around it. Two other Thin Lizzy tracks talk about the blight  of emigration from a then politically toxic and economically bereft Ireland in Wild One from Fighting and Fool's Gold from the Johnny The Fox album.

To my complete discredit I never got around to seeing Thin Lizzy live in the late Seventies and early Eighties when growing up in Belfast and look back on this with great regret. Like Rory Gallagher and Horslips, Thin Lizzy would often play in Belfast across the timespan of the Ulster Troubles and two of their guitarists - Eric Bell and the late Gary Moore - came from Joceyln Avenue and Castleview Road in the east of the city. An overview of the group's concert history throws up many venues in Belfast and Northern Ireland that are now long gone:

1970 - The Astor Belfast in March, The Carousel's Zig Zag Discotheque Belfast in April and the McMordie Hall at Queens University Belfast in May. Ulster Hall Belfast (two gigs) and Newry Town Hall in October. They also played at the Embassy Ballroom in Derry City during the year.

1971 - Another gig at the Embassy Ballroom in Derry and the Town and Country Inn in Newtownards.

1972 - Kelly's Barn Portrush, Ballymena's Flamingo and the King's Arms Hotel in Larne in July.

1973 - Eric Bell's last performance with the group on New Year's Eve at Queen's University.

1974 - Ulster Hall in January and The Carousel in April. Kelly's Hotel Portrush, Antrim Town's Deerpark Hotel and the King's Club in Bangor in July. In August they played the Deerpark Hotel again and the Ulster Hall. Kellys at Portrush on Boxing Day. Other internet resources mention gigs in Newtownards, Dromore, the Royal Arms Hotel in Omagh and the New University of Ulster at Coleraine. Also a December gig at Romanos Ballroom in Belfast.

1975 - The Flamingo in Ballymena in January.

1978 - Two nights at the Ulster Hall in June.

1980 - Lakeland Forum in Enniskillen and The Forum in Antrim in January. Also a gig at the King's Hall in Belfast.

1982 - Three concerts at the Whitla Hall Belfast in January. Phil Lynott played a solo concert at Derry's Rialto and at Omagh Town's Knocknamoe in this year - another at the Maysfield Leisure Centre in Belfast was cancelled.

1983 - Last Thin Lizzy concert in Northern Ireland at the King's Hall Belfast on 8th April.

The Astor was a dance hall in College Court off Castle Street in Belfast and was one of the city's most popular showband venues and later home to the late Sixties "Marquee Club". It closed in the early Seventies in the midst of the terrorist campaigns of the time and was demolished in 2001. The Carousel was located in Chichester Street in central Belfast - the date of its closure is unknown. Romanos Ballroom was in Queen Street in the city and closed around 1969-70.

Ballymena's Flamingo hosted concerts by the likes of The Small Faces, Pink Floyd, The Rolling Stones and Dusty Springfield from its opening in 1959. It also closed at the start of the Seventies. The King's Arms Hotel in Larne was damaged in a large IRA car bomb attack in 1980 and would no longer appear to be in business while The Deerpark Hotel in Antrim was demolished in the late Nineties. The Royal Arms Hotel in Omagh closed in 1999. The Rialto Theatre in Derry became a Primark store and the Embassy Ballroom a nightclub. I can find no information at present on The King's Club in Bangor or the Town and Country Club in Newtownards - both in County Down - though a great picture of the group in a rowing boat around The Long Hole on the bay clearly dates from the former gig.

A year after the group split up in 1983 Gary Moore and Phil Lynott released the bestselling single Out In The Fields about the bitter conflict in Ulster. Lynott had released solo albums in 1980 and 1982 - the former covering subjects ranging from now-vanished Soho streetscapes to the death of Elvis Presley to the London punk scene of 1979.

At Christmas in Belfast I noticed that a set of several murals facing The Duke of York pub in the Cathedral Quarter included one of famous Belfast and Ulster personalities including Gary Moore. Alongside him were George Best, the comic actor James Young, boxer Rinty Monaghan, poet Seamus Heaney, punk promoter Terri Hooley, snooker champion Alex Higgins, The Chieftans' instrumentalist Derek Bell, actor Liam Neeson, Eurovisionists Dana and Clodagh Rogers, flautist James Galway, songwriter Phil Coulter and goalkeeper Pat Jennings. Leaning against a wall at the back and looking at the stars - in front of a poster for The Maritime blues venue of Them vintage - stands Phil Lynott the black Dubliner.

During the Sixties George Best would frequent the overnight bar at the Clifton Grange Hotel in Manchester's Whalley Range which was run at that time by Lynott's mother Philomena. Phil Lynott was a huge Manchester United fan over the years and wrote the track  For Those Who Love To Live on the Fighting album about Best. He also namechecked his friend and favorite footballer - along with Van Morrison and the Mountains of Mourne - in Black Rose's litany of Irish icons.

So much of the light, style and warmth of Irish cultural identity are embodied in these two utterly unique and charismatic men who left this world way too soon. Have a listen tonight to the originally projected Whiskey in the Jar A-side Black Boys on the Corner, to 1973's Vagabonds of the Western World title track or the late period It's Getting Dangerous to remember just how good Thin Lizzy were.

The Rocker and Georgie Best died of substance abuse at the ages of 36 and 59 respectively. Lynott passed away in 1986 and his grave is situated at St Fintan's Cemetery in the Northside of Dublin at the base of Howth Head  - Best died in 2005 is buried in Roselawn Cemetery on the outskirts of East Belfast with his mother and father.