Moore is more

Last week the organisers of the AVO Session announced that Gary Moore will be playing Basel on November 13. That isn’t necessarily a reason to get excited, as I’d prefer to hear the Irish guitarist ripping through Thin Lizzy classics when Scott Gorham and friends visit the area on October 7 to the metallic blues he’s been pumping out since the early 1990s. I do, however, have a soft spot for Gary Moore as he has unwittingly given me many an opportunity to bask in his reflected glory. The reason for this privilege was a denim jacket embroidered with his name and a Les Paul guitar that his record company sent me around the time of the “Still Got The Blues” album. I loved the jacket but never got around to removing the embroidery so I ended up being a walking billboard for Mr. Moore for the first half of the 1990’s, and the benefits thereof manifested themselves on a regular basis. Backstage at the St. Gallen open-air festival in 1992, my attempts to pay for my drinks were repeatedly refused, and it was only later that I realised that I had been taken for a member of Gary Moore’s crew as he happened to be the headliner at the festival. A few months later, a salesman in a Boston music store attempted to grill me about life on the road, again assuming me to be a tour veteran because of my attire. My favourite jacket moment dates back to May 1991 when I went to Sheffield to interview Julian Cope, then on his “Peggy Suicide” tour which had him play small venues at night and visit standing stones during the day. After the stellar gig, tour manager Ian Kwinn drove us to a curry-house to get some food. While Julian elected to stay in the mini-bus, the band piled out to place their orders, and while we were waiting, the proprietor asked us who we were and what we were doing in Sheffield. When the musicians told him they were a band, he started working out who played which instrument. He was absolutely certain about who the lead singer must be, i.e. the only member of the party not wearing leather. Much to the band’s amusement, he pointed at me in my Gary Moore jacket. Thanks, Gary, I’m eternally indebted to you for my five minutes of star power.