Cork Opera House 1987: How Rory Gallagher showed he could still rock 

A tribute concert this week pays homage to Rory Gallagher's blistering hometown gig in the mid-1980s, an era when life was already taking its toll on him 

Rory Gallagher at the Olympia in Dublin in early 1988, a few months after his Cork Opera House gig. No pictures survive of the Cork gig. Picture: Getty Images/Independent

It was an older, more careworn Rory Gallagher who stepped on stage at Cork Opera House on November 4, 1987. At 39, Cork’s greatest rocker had lost some of his previous leanness and intensity. He looked tired around the eyes, this warhorse who’d spent so long at the frontline. 

But it took all of 30 seconds for the woes and wrinkles to fall away as he plunged into Continental Op, one of the strongest tracks from his summer 1987 album, Defender. Backed by long-time mainstays of bassist Gerry McAvoy and drummer Brendan O’Neill, Gallagher blazed through this blues blitzkrieg. It was as if an earthquake had struck Emmet Place.