By Monk
Gary Moore was one of those unique musical forces of nature. An untrained musician, a guitarist who played from the heart and with the internal instinct to be able to make his instrument cry and talk, sing and weep with every ounce of the passion he put into crafting what were basically a few pieces of electronics, metal and wood into something that spoke to the human heart and soul on the both the most basic and cerebral of levels.
This latest legacy release comes from what would have been one of the most unusual, and prestigious, gigs the Belfast Boy would have been invited to play – and, ironically, one of the last such shows he would perform, as he was cruelly snatched from us just two short years later.
Playing to an audience of the super rich, seated around candlelit tables in a re-imaging of a New York speakeasy, Moore may have been following in the footsteps of the likes of Ray Charles, Elton John and Eric Clapton, but that didn’t mean he was sitting back and taking it easy, ripping immediately into back-to-back feedback-soaked, viscerally defiant renditions of ‘Oh, Pretty Baby’ and ‘Since I Met You Baby’, the latter characterized by multiples of his characteristic cascading fretboard runs which see the notes literally falling off his fingers and into your musical memory cells.
Clocking in at more than 12 minutes, the epically resonant ‘I’ll Love You More Than You’ll Ever Know’ features one of Moore’s most haunting guitar lines, it’s initial lament subsequently stripped right back to a beautifully subliminal undertone, before slowly emerging from a cocoon of hibernation into one of his trademark extrapolations, laconic and expressive in equal measure, proving that, like all great artists of any mien it was what he left out that was as important as what he included. Yes, Moore could rip up a guitar neck with as much, if not more ferocity, than any million-notes-a-second shredder in whose shadow they care to walk, but he always knew that holding back was often so much more important, a quality he exhibited each and every time he held an audience in the palm of his calloused hands.
With the first half of the session dominated by cover versions, Moore takes the second half of the set by the scruff to move into his own creative space, with a suitably rambunctious version of Lizzy’s ‘Don’t Believe A Word’, complete with the traditionally rowdy finale, followed by a typically impassioned yet almost impoverished rendition of ‘Still Got The Blues For You’.
At the time of his appearance in Basle, Moore more than likely did not know he was nearing the end of his life, or realize that by leaving behind recordings such as this he was cementing his legacy as one of the most individual and influential cross-genre guitarists, nay instrumentalists, and innovators of his or any generation. But, then, he did leave behind a helluva legacy, of which this is just a small sample.
- ‘Gary Moore Live – From Baloise Session‘ is out now.