Live and Dangerous: Концертный Альбом Thin Lizzy

Live album by Thin Lizzy

Live and Dangerous is a live double album by the Irish rock band Thin Lizzy, released in June 1978. It was recorded in London in 1976, and Philadelphia and Toronto in 1977, with further production in Paris. It was also the last Thin Lizzy album to feature guitarist Brian Robertson, who left the band shortly after its release. The band decided to release a live album after their producer Tony Visconti did not have enough time to work on a full studio session. They listened through various archive recordings from earlier tours and compiled the album from the best versions. Various studio overdubs were made to the live recordings during early 1978 in Paris; exactly how much of the album is overdubbed has been a contentious topic since its release. The album reached No. 2 in the UK Albums Chart, ultimately selling over half a million copies in the UK. It has continued to attract critical acclaim and it has appeared in several lists of the greatest live albums of all time.

By the mid 1970s, Thin Lizzy had stabilised around its founding members – singer and bassist Phil Lynott and drummer Brian Downey – and guitarists Scott Gorham and Brian Robertson. The band had scored hit singles and developed a strong live following, including headlining the Reading Festival. Robertson had briefly left the band in 1977 but subsequently returned. To promote the album, the group filmed a gig at the Rainbow Theatre, London on 29 March 1978 for a television broadcast. However, this was cancelled and the footage went unaired.

The album was mixed and overdubbed at Studio Des Dames, Paris in January 1978. Visconti later said the overdubs and production were essential in order that the listener could hear a professional sounding band. He claims to have created some audience sounds from a keyboard triggered tape loop in a similar manner to a Mellotron or sampling keyboard. Nevertheless, Visconti was happy with the production and believes the end result sounds authentic. Robertson has been particularly critical over Visconti's view. He has said the album is almost all live, and the sound levels on stage would make overdubbing impossible due to the lack of acoustic separation between instruments. He claims a recording of "Still In Love With You", featuring a guitar solo he felt was better than the one at the gig that was eventually released, could not be used due to phaser noise on the bass. From this, he concluded that if the bass could not be overdubbed, nothing else could either. O'Donnell hired Chalkie Davies, a photographer for New Musical Express for two weeks to photograph the band on a US tour in early 1978 in order to capture enough pictures suitable for the album artwork. The front cover, featuring Lynott in the foreground, was originally supposed to be the back cover as the group wanted equal coverage of all members. O'Donnell disagreed and reversed the front and back photographs at the last minute. The album had a working title of Thin Lizzy Live but Lynott decided that Live and Dangerous was better. Some pressings of the record sleeve include a montage photograph in the studio containing a mirror, straw, razor blade and a rolled up five pound note (as an overt reference to cocaine consumption). Lynott insisted on adding the picture over the rest of the band's objections.

Live and Dangerous was released as a double album on 2 June 1978. In the UK, it was released on Vertigo Records and reached a high of No. 2 in the UK album charts, held from the top spot by the Grease soundtrack album. It remained in the charts for 62 weeks and eventually sold 600,000 copies. It was also the first album to be released by Warner Bros. Records in America after the band left Mercury Records in that area. A single from the album, "Rosalie / Cowgirl's Song" backed with a live version of "Me And The Boys", which was a frequent encore but not included on the album, was released in April and reached No. 20 in the UK Singles Chart. The band began touring to promote the album, but after a one off gig in Ibiza, Lynott and Robertson had an acrimonious argument. Robertson subsequently quit Thin Lizzy permanently to form Wild Horses with former Rainbow bassist Jimmy Bain. He was replaced by a returning Gary Moore, who had already been a band member in 1974 and 1977. The album was reissued on CD in 1989. The March 1978 footage from the Rainbow Theatre concert was released a first time in 1980 on VHS by VCL Video and as a 60 minute edit by Castle Communications in 1994 and titled Live & Dangerous. The footage was released on DVD in 2007, with other group performances including a show from their farewell tour on 26 January 1983, and four Top of the Pops clips from the 1970s. In 2009, the live album Still Dangerous was released, which features material from the 20 October 1977 gig at Philadelphia that was used for some of Live and Dangerous. There is some overlap of tracks between the two albums, though Still Dangerous is completely live with no overdubs. In 2022, a deluxe box set of the album was released, containing the original live recordings that made up the album. These showed that there was far less overdubbing than previously claimed.