Let in the shine on me

When the Irish band were a folksy blues three-piece, it was Eric Bell who defined Thin Lizzy on their 1971 self-titled debut and early 70s follow-ups, Shades Of A Blue Orphanage and Vagabonds Of The Western World

At 7.52 pm exactly I find myself pushing open the door of The Bell and Long Wheat. I’m overwhelmed by the smell of cigarettes and alcohol and by the profligate confetti of leopard-print tops, huge hoo

You don’t need to be a football fan to find the sound of a crowd singing together profoundly moving. And you don’t need to be a Liverpool FC fan to find the Kop end singing You’ll Never Walk Alone a b

Richard Barrett is on a mission to make you a better blues player – with full audio examples and backing tracks

Midge Ure, the Live Aid orchestrator and Ultravox synth-pop pioneer, looks back at his trial by fire with Thin Lizzy – and why he told Phil Lynott: “I’m not the guy you should be asking”

Forty years ago, football hooliganism was at its peak, causing outrage, fear and fatalities. How did the sport recover from its darkest days, and what happened to the men who belonged to the “firms”? Rosa Silverman reports