Every important song Lizzy had written up to its recording was there (discounting, as Phil Lynott did, the folksy early recordings), so it was a greatest hits it captured the band in full flight in a way they hadn’t really managed in the studio it was easily marketable, right down to the startling cover image, which had been intended for the back until a last-minute switch and it dealt with Lizzy’s ever-present inconsistency in sterling style. Live And Dangerous ticked all those boxes. They might act as de facto greatest hits records they might capture the live magnificence of a group not deemed to have quite bottled the magic when they went into the studio they served as a flab-free introduction to groups that a label wanted to get behind but couldn’t quite find a way to sell they were the way to bypass inconsistent albums to produce a single collection that could be marketed strongly. Through the 19s, live albums served specific purposes. That Live And Dangerous became the most beloved and popular Thin Lizzy album is a product of circumstance. Live And Dangerous, a double platinum album in the UK, allowed them to make the step to greatness. A slight air of underachievement loitered: greatness hung about them, but never quite enveloped them.
When Live And Dangerous was released, Lizzy had managed two top 10 albums and two top 10 singles. It would also be impossible for a band of Thin Lizzy’s status now to release a live album as anything other than a tour souvenir, certainly not for it become a definitive part of their catalogue. Live And Dangerous might not be the best live album ever made, but it’s the best album Thin Lizzy ever made, a double album that’s pretty much a pleasure from start to finish, and a live album without any of the manifold vices that traditionally afflicted such records: no 20-minute solo spots, little in the way extended interaction with the crowd, no radically inferior reworkings of beloved songs in order to keep the band mildly interested in their 3,923rd performance of it.
It was released on the 1978 album Live And Dangerous, “recorded” (the inverted commas are important) in London in 1976 and Toronto in 1977. ‘Are You Ready?’ doesn’t appear on any of Thin Lizzy’s studio albums. It makes me feel old-fashioned, as if the natural position of the left foot is on the monitor and fingers were made to be curled into fists and thrown into the air. ‘Are You Ready?’ is a song so taut and single-minded, so devastatingly exciting, that if a band can follow it, then they deserve to be on the stage. For years and years, I’ve wanted to hear a rock & roll band walk on stage to Thin Lizzy’s ‘Are You Ready?’ First, it cues up the show lyrically – “Are you ready to rip it up? Are you ready to tear it down?” – and, second, it acts as test. Of course, I was always going to say yes, but I extracted a price: that they let me choose and cue up their walk-on music. It’s got that vibe.Earlier this year, I was asked to DJ before the third of the Hold Steady’s three London shows. But Renegade is still today a wonderful piece of work. I believe they opened the show with that song. The title track Renegade is probably my favourite song on the album, but due to the new band member Darren Wharton’s excellent keyboard work on it, Angel Of Death is also up there as one of my favourites. That night we stood in the fifth row banging our fists in the air. By that time we hadn’t yet changed our band name to Europe we were still called Force and were just kids ‘dreaming hard’ of becoming a touring band like Purple and Lizzy. It took us about 40 minutes to get to the venue which gave us enough time to down some beers and talk about the songs and the musicianship of this remarkable band. It was usually John Norum, John Leven and myself from the band and a couple of our friends travelling on the train. We took the train from Upplands Vasby, our home town. The Renegade tour/show was probably the third or fourth time I’d seen them live, but it was still as great as ever. When Thin Lizzy came to town (Stockholm) we would always try and see them live.
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