Last year, Joe Bonamassa played a tribute to one of his heroes, Rory Gallagher, from Gallagher’s hometown of Cork in Ireland. Any Bonamassa fan will be aware of Bonamassa’s connection to Rory Gallagher and this was an entire series of gigs dedicated to the mans music. “I never had the honour to meet him, but his music and musicianship loom large in my life,” Bonamassa writes in a personal foreword accompanying the release. “From my first time hearing Irish Tour ’74 I was captivated by the sheer intensity of the man and the ferocity of his approach to the electric blues.”
The three gigs were a sell out and Bonamassa got enlivened by the whole atmosphere “This was Rory’s town, and Rory’s people. We weren’t going to let them down,” Bonamassa says. “The crowds on those three nights were rowdy, raucous and Cork did their favourite son proud.”
The album & film will be out on June 19th but Bonamassa has released three tracks from the album now. ‘Walk On Hot Coals (Live),’ ‘Bullfrog Blues (Live),’ and ‘Who’s That Coming? (Live)’.
As you would expect, Bonamassa plays Gallagher’s music in his own style, rather than trying to copy Gallagher, but you can feel the spirit of Rory flowing through these numbers and the result is stunning music any way you look at it.
