The disastrous tours that almost destroyed Thin Lizzy
You’d think that a 1977 tour of the US with Queen and Thin Lizzy would be the stuff of legends. Two of the biggest rock bands coming out of the British Isles at the time, and both at the peak of their powers, having released the biggest albums of their respective careers to date at this point, playing on the same stage one after another. Sounds like a dream, no? The truth is, it almost spelt disaster for Thin Lizzy.
Despite having American members, the multinational band were never a success in the US, and after a previous tour was cancelled due to illness and injuries within the band, they suddenly became available to take Roger Taylor and Brian May up on a kind offer that they’d received during a listening party for A Day at the Races. After dismissing guitarist Brian Robertson, the band had to draft in Gary Moore for a second stint, and they were ready to go.
While the tour itself wasn’t a disaster, the fact that they unintentionally upstaged Queen, according to multiple reports, didn’t go down well. If there’s a golden rule in rock music, you don’t outdo the band you’re supporting, and what’s more, you certainly don’t do it to Queen. Their performances were high-energy every night, and while they’d been invited on the tour by two members of the band who declared themselves big fans of what they were doing, Queen certainly didn’t enjoy the fact that Thin Lizzy had frankly shown them up on multiple occasions, not least in Boston, which they considered to be their stomping ground in the US.
However, this was the mark of where the rot started to set in, and the band seemingly got ahead of themselves after this tour. Not only had they shattered themselves physically and mentally, but it led to greater tension among the members, and a changed perception of their status as one of the most formidable live acts in the world.
Phil Lynott saw that Freddie Mercury was getting the star treatment on the US tour, and saw fit to go all out with the lavish aspects of touring life, and wanted to up the production value of the shows. It was on their next tour in Germany that the singer and bassist would threaten to cancel a show in Hamburg because they weren’t allowed to use flash bombs, something that they did anyway in a last-ditch attempt to win over support, and they had to work hard to get as much as a smirk out of their German audiences.
There were other cities on the tour, such as Saarbrücken, where they were wondering if an audience would even show up, but the fact that they managed to play all of the hits for them without so much as falling apart or having a bust-up was incredible. As much as they were in the ascendency, they’d worked hard to earn the respect of fans who were never going to repay them, and they’d also exhausted themselves when it came to working on their music from this era.
They realised they’d been put through the wringer to get where they were, and with lineup changes having taken place, they knew they needed to move on and take things in a different direction.
“We’re gonna move away from that era with Brian and into another one with Gary, depending on how long we stay together,” Lynott proclaimed following the tour. “The pressure broke up the band before. It could easily break this one. I don’t think that we’re one of these bands that are gonna last forever and ever. We could break up at any time, but don’t be writing our epitaphs yet because, as far as I’m concerned, we’re just starting now.”
