“Gary was so talented it actually haunted him. He wasn’t really in control of what was coming through him. That sort of thing always comes at a price”: How guitar icon Gary Moore snatched defeat from the jaws of victory with his early 80s solo albums

Gary Moore performing onstage in the mid-80s.

In the summer of 1984, Gary Moore was 32 and living off his reputation as one of the greatest guitarists in Britain. But so what? He’d been hearing about how great he was on guitar since he was 10 years old and playing in Irish showbands. That wasn’t what kept him up at night scowling.

With his disconcertingly scarred face (the result of a pub-fight glassing he was too wasted to remember the next morning) and overeager-Spaniel hair (the result, common at the time, of long-haired 70s rockers updating their haircuts to accommodate the rock-is-dead 80s), Moore appeared a haunted figure, both on stage, where his playing was intensely aggressive even at its most tender moments, and, especially, off stage, where even old friends sometimes came away a little frightened.