Live In Europe

After two critically acclaimed but commercially disappointing solo studio albums, Rory Gallagher unleashed this raging live disc in 1972 at the age of 23. It not established him in the States, where he had toured only once previously (with his first band Taste, opening for Blind Faith on their brief tour), and was a worldwide hit. Gallagher blasts through rearranged versions of three Junior Wells songs ("Messin' With the Kid," "I Could've Had Religion," and "Hoodoo Man") and Muddy Waters' "Bullfrog Blues," a holdover from his Taste days, like his fingers are exploding. Even on acoustic tracks like "Going to My Home Town" where Gallagher strums his mandolin with such ferocity it sounds like the strings are going to pop, he attacks with the intensity of a talented young man with something to prove.