Sad to hear of the passing of former Thin Lizzy and Whitesnake guitarist John Sykes. Here are my recollections of seeing him with Lizzy back in '83. This is an extract from my 2012 ebook "Drum Solos, Bottles and Bands - Memories of a Concert-Goer 1981-1999".
Thin Lizzy
The Playhouse, Edinburgh
17 March 1983
While I was a fan of many of the rock bands that were in the charts in the 70s I wasn't sure about the heavier bands. I liked the odd song by Black Sabbath and Deep Purple but I was reluctant to splash out on one of their albums. In the school holidays I used to go down to Lancashire and stay with a friend's family for a week. He knew I liked rock music and tried to get me interested in some of the heavy metal he was into. He played me a Whitesnake album on one occasion but my reaction was that while the music was okay I didn't really like the singer.
So I stuck with the familiar sounds of Queen and Thin Lizzy and on St Patrick's Day in 1983 Phil Lynott brought the final line-up of Lizzy to Edinburgh on the Thunder and Lightning tour. Snowy White had left the band and been replaced by former Tygers of Pan Tang guitarist John Sykes. Watching footage of that line-up there is a striking contrast between the youthful exuberance of Sykes bouncing around the stage and the ashen-faced, weary looking Scott Gorham. The drug taking of Lynott and Gorham has been well documented but what is noticeable is how in control Lynott looked on stage, still loving every minute of being Lizzy's frontman. Despite it now being the best part of thirty years on, that night in Edinburgh remains one of my favourite gigs of all time. Support came from the young Irish band Mama's Boys but the night belonged to Lizzy. Lynott had the audience eating out of the palm of his hand. Highlights included 'Jailbreak', complete with police lights spinning round behind Brian Downey's drum kit during the instrumental break, and 'Emerald' played in the encore and dedicated to St Patrick.
It was one of rock music's great tragedies that Phil Lynott's life pretty much fell apart after Thin Lizzy disbanded. He had some success with Gary Moore on the 'Out in the Fields' single and formed the band Grand Slam which briefly included Brian Downey. But by all accounts he had simply done too much damage to his body with the drink and drugs. He died on the 4th of January 1986 of pneumonia and multiple organ failure. Tommy Vance presented a tribute show to Phil Lynott on his BBC Radio 1 Friday Rock Show with various members of Thin Lizzy sharing memories of their former band leader, and each one dedicated a song to him. Brian Robertson in particular sounded very emotional and chose 'Still In Love With You'. I had come home early from the pub that Friday to hear the show and I will admit to shedding a few tears myself. With Lynott's passing we had lost one of the great rock talents of the 70s and early 80s.
The following year I started getting more into the hard rock and heavy metal scene, reading Kerrang! and buying a leather biker's jacket off a friend at work and I was even starting to see the appeal of Whitesnake. This was partly due to the fact that John Sykes had joined them after Thin Lizzy split and Cozy Powell now occupied the drum seat vacated by the equally impressive Ian Paice. So I gave David Coverdale's voice another listen and went to see them on their Slide It In tour in February 1984.
