Messin WITH THE RIG

Three decades since his death, Rory Gallagher remains the ultimate road warrior. As we rebuild the exact rigs from the late Irishman's most famous live periods, using historic gear loaned by his estate, Daniel Gallagher looks back over his uncle's lifetime on the boards

- Henry Yates

You only had to glance at Rory Gallagher to know the road was his natural habitat. The rumpled check shirt, the three-day stubble, the air of nomadic bliss: everything suggested a twilight creature to be spotted at the stage door, gas station and bolthole motel. As Joe Bonamassa once told this writer: "Rory was the guy who would pour out of the van after he drove for 17 hours, set up his own amp, plug in, play the best show you'd ever seen in your life, pick up his amp and guitar, get back in the van and drive to the next city"

As Rory's nephew - and the producer of his posthumous releases, including All Around Man, a new cut-and-shut of two fierce London shows played in December 1990 - Daniel Gallagher knows better than most what it meant to his uncle to take the stage. And as he unboxes the fabled guitars, amps and pedals "Rory came alive on stage, or certainly that alter ego he had. He was such a shy, that have largely lain dormant since Rory passed in June 1995, Daniel recalls the startling gearshift from the gentle, shaggy-haired relative to quiet guy, but then he the febrile showman flaying the last became an animal" of the paint from his '61 Strat.

"I think that Rory came alive on Daniel Gallagher stage, or certainly that alter ego he had. He was such a shy, quiet guy but then he became this animal. I knew him well as a kid, and I remember seeing him live for the first time at the Hammer smith Odeon in '87. My dad pulled back the curtain at the side of the stage, Rory was already playing and I remember thinking, That's him?" It was surreal knowing him from playing football in the back garden to this guy machine-gunning the crowd and going crazy."