Rory Gallagher fans will get a good taste of the Irish guitar legend when Band of Friends plays Vancouver

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      Rory Gallagher fans who've never stopped loving the Irish guitar great since his liver-related death in 1995 are in for a treat this winter.

      Local blues aficionado and concert promoter Ron Simmonds of the Canadian Pacific Blues Society tells me that he's booked Band of Friends: A Celebration of the Music of Rory Gallagher to play Vancouver's Fox Cabaret on December 14. 

      That's a Friday night, mofos!

      For the uninitiated, Band of Friends is composed of Gallagher's old rhythm-section, bassist Gerry McAvoy (who was in Rory's band for 20 years and played on all his albums), and drummer Ted McKenna (who played on albums like 1978's Photo-Finish and 1979's Top Priority), along with guitarist-vocalist Davy Knowles, a gifted, 31-year-old blues-rock picker from the Isle of Man.

      “I grew up about 30 miles or so off the coast in Ireland, so I heard a lot of Celtic music over there, it was all around,” Knowles told Steve Houk in an April post on midliferockers.com. “I mean, it’s a Celtic nation, so it was part of the fabric, but nothing I was really interested in. But I was very into blues and rock and roll at this point, and what I had heard in Rory’s music were these really beautiful Celtic inflections in his playing, in his phrasing, in his fabric, I guess.

      "And that’s what really struck me…that wow, you can combine these things. So it was really that connection that immediately grabbed me, and just the sheer aggression and power and relentlessness of it was just so totally and utterly captivating and exciting.”

      Check the band out on three of Gallagher's best-known tunes, and if you like what you hear, see you at the gig!

      Stand on it Davy!

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