New Thin Lizzy Video Captures Phil Lynott Playing a Roland G33 on “The Boys Are Back in Town”
There are certain bands that just look impossibly cool on stage and Thin Lizzy is at the top of that list.
The band’s official YouTube channel has released another performance from their 1983 appearance on Sight and Sound In Concert, this time performing one of their biggest songs, “The Boys Are Back in Town.” Phil Lynott is out front on bass and vocals with Scott Gorham and John Sykes on guitars, Brian Downey on drums, and Darren Wharton on keyboards.
Back in late June, we shared “Jailbreak” from this same performance, which sent me down a rabbit hole trying to figure out exactly what bass Lynott was playing. It turned out to be a Roland G33, a bass designed to work with Roland’s GR33B bass synth system. Lynott’s appears to have been customized his a bit which made identifying it a little more difficult.
Phil Lynott. Thin Lizzy. One of the biggest songs in the band’s catalog. It really does not get much cooler than this.
No Treble CEO Jody Miller is a Chicago-based bassist, guitarist, engineer, and producer best known for his bass gear demo videos and as the co-host of The Bass Nerds podcast.
Hi, we recently discussed this on our Basses I’d Like To Pluck Facebook page at:
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No Treble recently posted an image of Phil Lynott with his Roland G3 bass.
We have a print article of Phil Lynott, and his, basses including the Roland Synthesier Bass Guitar, from Guitar Heroes magazine, November 1982
It would appear that by, 1983, Phil had removed the synthesiser guts, and installed a Precision style pickup.
[OPEN QUOTE]
Roland were very clever when they came out with their bass synthesiser because you can only use it if you’ve got the guitar to go with it! Half of the controls on the front are for the synthesiser and you can get some reallv weird animal sounds. I used it a lot on ‘The Philip Lynott Album’ and also on the solo tour. It’s not a bad bass quitar in its own right and l’ve actually used it on a couple of tracks for the new Lizzy LP.
[CLOSE QUOTE]
Although many associate Phil with a Precision bass, with a mirrored scratchplate, he was never really a fan of them.
Here’s a quote from an interview with Phil Lynott by Tony Bacon, from November 1981 entitled:
Thin Lizzy’s Phil Lynott on “What Makes a Renegade Tick”.
The link to that interview can be found as the caption on the relevant image.
[OPEN QUOTE]
And then I went to a Fender, and the Fender was ideal, you know? A Precision, yes [a rosewood-board model and then also a maple-board one]. A great knockabout guitar. But they slipped for a while, Fender—they didn’t improve. And there were all these other guitars coming up that were passing them by, and they were sort of going, “But we’re Fender.” And they never did jack shit fire, you know? You could have a hundred of them, and nobody would even say thanks. That’s what I’m used to, honestly, that’s what I was used to.
[CLOSE QUOTE]
iWOULD HAVE LIKED TO SEE AND HEAR IT!