Visiting Phil

When you're in Dublin, you've got to visit the greatest Irish rocker who ever lived (deal with it, Bono).

My first order of business here was to find the statue of Phil Lynott in downtown Dublin. A couple of street sweepers sent me on my way; they were very familiar with it, and I was embarrassed to realize I'd been mispronouncing the name all these years. It's LIH-nit.

I followed tradition and left Phil one of my guitar picks. I can't play a lick, but I do own a guitar and I strummed it wildly before I left Texas and brought the pick to tuck into Phil's bass strings.

There's even a vague MTH connection. Back around 1980, I've read, Phil served as babysitter for Ian Hunter's son Jesse when Thin Lizzy and Hunter-Ronson were playing the same festival and it was time for IH to go on stage.

I'll never forget the only time I saw Thin Lizzy.

It was June 1976 at the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago. Lizzy were second-billed to Nazareth in the most catastrophically bad booking decision I've ever seen.

I admit, though, I was there to see Nazareth. But Thin Lizzy -- the classic lineup of Lynott, Brian Robertson, Scott Gorham and Brian Downey -- came out and, figuratively speaking, burned the house down. I've never seen a singer incite a crowd the way Phil Lynott did that night.

When Thin Lizzy went off, the fans would not stop screaming for them. When Nazareth came on, the fans were still screaming for Thin Lizzy and were throwing objects at Nazareth. I remember seeing Pete Agnew, or maybe it was Manny Charlton, get doused with beer. But it was a truncated set. Nazareth finally got tired of it and walked off. This was pre-Internet, so you weren't able to follow tour dates as well. But I'll bet Lizzy was off the tour the next night.

That showed me the power of Lynott and Thin Lizzy. Unfortunately, I never saw them again.

But I've always thought Jailbreak is a great album even beyond the familiar hits on that record. And I think Live and Dangerous is the best live album ever made.

Lynott's statue is tucked away on a small street in Dublin, right next to a bar. But it says something that they'd even have one for him. It was great to scratch that visit to Phil off my life's to-do list.