Glasgow Apollo , 1979, Black Rose tour. Great place to start this wild and crazy trip. Was sad when Lynott went downhill and away.

We out-ranked our juniors who still languished in school, for we had done our first years at University, and we were home for the long hot summer again, mighty in our supremacy, and lusty in our search for pleasures.

We met in the pubs of the Barbican, cobbled and washed with fish scales, where the beer flowed straight from the barrel, and the jukeboxes were filled with wonders and delights to please the cosmopolitan tastes of all nations, whose mariners also frequented these taverns.

And Lo! It was good, for the boys were back in town again.

loved em as a nipper and my nipper who's 5 loves "Boys are Back in Town" - so much so that he asks for it over and over on car trips which is diminishing my love for them a little it must be said.

They just had that edge of soul like Free which marks them out as distinct from the rest of the rifftastic, be-denimed hordes.

Newcastle City Hall..absolutely brilliant...apart from my "coyote call" at the start of "Cowboy Song" which i thought was sooo clever..nearly got lynched!!

was my second ever concert and started an enduring passion for all things 'Lizzy'. Hugely underrated and without question my favourite band of all time, even though bizarrely my favourite genre of music is now country - a different type of Cowboy Song!

I've met Eric Bell a couple of times. A great guy with great stories to tell about the early blues, pre-pop days. Interview him now Mr Ellen!

A mate of mine introduced me to them. He was taken with "Whiskey In THe jar" and the "Nightlife" album, neither of which did much for me. However that changed when "Jailbreak" was released.

It may have been my relative youth and inexpereince of gigs but I have a vivid memory of Lizzy taking the stage - I caught them twice in London in 1976, the second gig became part of "Live & Dangerous". Police lights and sirens cutting across an otherwise dark stage and then flash bombs as they launched into "Jailbreak". Major goose bumps.

Lynott and Robertson looked so cool, and more than a bit dangerous - it was the kind of swagger and attitude that you just don't seem to get anymore. The way Lynott used to lean back and bounce a spotlight off a mirrored scrtachplate on his bass - it would probably seem cheesy now, but back then it was just great.

It went downhill thereafter. They were headliners at Reading when I went in 1977 but I can really remember is the mud, and by the time I saw them on their farewell tour in Oxford in 1983, it wasn't the same. Keyboards were now a fixture, as was John Sykes widdly widdly fretwork- not my idea of Lizzy.

The footnote was a miserable rain lashed night in May 1984. Out for a drink in Oxford, the then FPO and I passed the Apollo and saw that Grand Slam were on. When I asked at the door if there were any seats left the doorman laughed and said "Take your pick mate" - it was less than a thrid full and the circle was closed off. It's not that Grand Slam weren't any good - they were OK. But they weren't Thin Lizzy, and you had to wonder why Lynott had folded the band.

I still play "Live and Dangerous" a lot. I don't care that it's mostly not live at all. I was there - I may well be one of the few live bits that actually made it on.

I vaguely remember the band was warming up for a big tour and played a 'mini tour', a few gigs in Scotland at small venues like the Palace Ballroom, Aberdeen (although it may have been called something else at that point) ... it was like seeing Live & Dangerous actually live ... I was 18 and very happy ...

further web investigation reveals:
The Palace was called Fusion at the time
Lizzy played Kirkcaldy, Inverness, Aberdeen and Irvine on that mini tour
The lineup was Lynott, Gorham, Downey, White & Wharton
Their next gig was headlining Slane Castle with support from Hazel O'Connor and a bunch of young Dubs called U2

By chance I read in Classic Rock last night that the franchise is back up and running. Now sans Sykes, Brain Downey is back on board along with Scott Gorham and keyboardist Darren Wharton plus bassist Marco Mendoza who had played with Lizzy between 1996–2001 and 2005–2007. The new additions are singer Ricky Warwick from The Almighty and Def Leppard guitarist Vivian Campbell. A 13 date UK tour from January 2011 follows.

Gorham admits he wasn't happy with the "Metal Lizzy" route that Sykes was taking the band down, which also seems to have been why Downey quit. Gorham invited Brian Robertson to give it another go but got a knock back. Busy doing his own album it seems, although Robbo's own website hasn't been updated since 2008.

Still, Campbell may breathe some life into the project - he was responsible for getting "Don't Believe A Word" onto the Lep's album of cover versions.

Or is this tremendously entertaining?

I know Mr. Home Productions has been well-regarded in these parts, and I suspect he's still finding his feet following his short-lived "retirement", but his stuff is as close to alchemy as the mash-up genre has produced. Am I alone in appreciating the Lizzy, being rather indifferent to Aguilera, yet enjoying the resulting concatenation?