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Size: 143 MB
Bitrate: 256
mp3
Ripped by: ChrisGoesRock
Artwork Included
Source: Japan 24-Bit Remaster

Irish Tour '74 is a blues oriented rock double-album by Rory Gallagher. The album was compiled from live recordings made at concerts on an Irish Tour in January 1974 at Belfast Ulster Hall, Dublin Carlton Cinema and Cork City Hall. 'Back On My Stompin´ Ground (After Hours)' was taken from a jam session during the Tour on the Lane Mobile Unit. Irish Tour has sold in excess of two million copies world-wide. An article in a Belfast daily newspaper stated: "Rory Gallagher never forgot Northern Ireland, he returned throughout the '70's when few other artists of his calibre dared not come near the place."

The album was re-released in a digital remastered CD-version in 1998, excluding the song "Just a Little Bit." (The number is available as a bonus track on the remastered CD-version of Gallagher's 1973 album Tattoo.)

Gallagher's 1974 tour of Ireland coincided with one of the most tumultous times in Belfast. Violence was erupting throughout the city even at rock concerts. As a result, many rock acts refused to play in the city. Nevertheless, Gallagher included a stop in Belfast on the tour and was rewarded with one of his best shows.

Additionally, rock film director Tony Palmer filmed many of the concerts on the tour. He originally planned to use it for a television special, but he later found the footage so good that he released it as a theatrical motion picture. The accompanying album would be considered the "soundtrack" of the film.

The companion piece to director Tony Palmer's documentary of the same name, Irish Tour 1974 was recorded that January in Belfast, Dublin, and Cork at a time when precious few performers — Irish or otherwise — were even dreaming of touring the trouble-torn island. Northern Ireland, in particular, was a rock & roll no-go area, but Gallagher never turned his back on the province and was rewarded with what history recalls as some of his best-ever gigs. Irish Tour 1974, in turn, captures some of his finest known live recordings and, while it's impossible to tell which songs were recorded where, across nine in-concert recordings (plus one after-hours jam session, "Back on My Stompin' Ground"), the energy crackling from stage to stalls and back again packs an intensity that few live albums — Gallagher's own others among them — can match.

Highlights of a stunning set include dramatic takes on Muddy Waters' "I Wonder Who" and Tony Joe White's "As the Crow Flies," a raw acoustic rendering that is nevertheless totally electrifying. A frustratingly brief snip of the classic Shadows-style "Maritime" (aka "Just a Little Bit") plays the album out in anthemic style and then, of course, there's "Walk on Hot Coals," a marathon excursion that posterity has decreed Gallagher's most popular and accomplished statement — a status that Irish Tour 1974 does nothing to contradict. It's foolish playing favorites, however. Even more than Gallagher's earlier (1972) Live in Europe album, Irish Tour 1974 confirms Gallagher not simply as the greatest bluesman Ireland ever knew, but as one of the island's greatest-ever performers. The 1999 remaster adds nothing in the way of bonus material (shame), but greatly improves the sound quality.

01."Cradle Rock" (Rory Gallagher) - 7:38
02."I Wonder Who" (Morganfield) - 7:52
03."Tattoo'd Lady" (Rory Gallagher) - 5:04
04."Too Much Alcohol" (J.B. Hutto) - 8:30
05."As The Crow Flies" (Tony Joe White) - 6:02
06."A Million Miles Away" (Rory Gallagher) - 9:29
07."Walk On Hot Coals" (Rory Gallagher) - 11:13
08."Who's That Coming?" (Rory Gallagher) - 10:05
09."Back On My Stompin' Ground (After Hours)" (Rory Gallagher) - 5:18
10."Maritime" (Rory Gallagher) - 0:33