Of course, now I’ve moved from that mid-sized southern city to a larger one, and from time to time I still find myself tuned into the classic rock station it’s a different one, but it’s still the same one. Lizzy’s more laid-back folksy elements separated them from the dunder-headed blooze boogie of the beer-ad rock that I had initially lumped them into – here was depth, an intelligence that I hadn’t imagined here was a musical and lyrical prowess that I hadn’t noticed in “The Boys Are Back In Town” (although it is there) – and of the two, the latter of those was one far more impressive than Zeppelin would ever have. I was a fledgling guitarist and an Iron Maiden fanatic, so the intertwined leads of Gorham and Robertson were perfect for me, and the contributions of the ever-underrated Gary Moore and Eric Bell were equally impressive, even without the guitarmonies. I was already a Springsteen devotee, and Phil Lynott’s blue-collar-beat-poet imagery and vocal cadence fit the Boss’ mold. I spent my allowance on a CD of Dedication, and in one spin, I was hooked. Oh where oh where was a guitar-driven classic rock band I could dig into and love and call my very own, a band I could actually discover for myself since their material wasn’t beaten into my brain by Fox 102.3? (As great as Led Zep were and are, I’ve truthfully never quite recovered, and I’d put quite a few bands above them on my list of favorites, including Thin Lizzy.) Between that and the month of Zeptember and Get The Led Out every day in the 5 PM drive-time, I was already jaded and worn out on these New Yardbirds. Most of my friends and classmates were just falling into that eternal adolescent male obsession with the mighty Zep, talking endlessly about the merits of their dad’s cassettes of Houses Of The Holy or Physical Graffiti as though they were the first awkward pimply boys to ever discover Page and Plant. I remember the reviewer saying something like “When everyone else was worshiping Led Zeppelin, I was listening to Thin Lizzy,” and I was instantly intrigued. I was maybe 13 when I read a review of Dedication: The Very Best Of Thin Lizzy in RIP magazine. Thankfully, I found out pretty quickly that I was wrong. “Free Bird,” of course, and “Walk This Way” and “Sister Christian” and “More Than A Feeling” and “Take The Money And Run” and “Slow Ride” and, if I was lucky, “Running With The Devil” or “Bohemian Rhapsody” or “Roundabout” or “Ziggy Stardust” or “Dream Police.” If you’d asked me back then, I’d have told you Thin Lizzy had one song, “The Boys Are Back In Town,” and that it was – and by extension, I assumed, they were – beer commercial rock, maybe like Bad Company with two guitarists or Edgar Winter Group without the noodly keyboards. As a suburban kid raised on the one classic rock radio station in a mid-sized southern American city, I was bombarded daily with the same 45 songs on a never-ending shuffle.
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