I remember the NME writing about him joining. They were incredulous about it, but of all the hard rock bands that had existed prior to the Punk craze, the NME was most gentle with Thin Lizzy. And they had forgiven Midge his 15 seconds of fame in SLIK - Centerfold might have catered for male fantasies, but SLIK catered for underage girl fantasies, I don't see much of a difference, Rob
![Mr. Green :mrgreen:](https://bassoutpost.com/Smileys/default/mrgreen.gif)
- due to his work in the Rich Kids and Visage, he had NME New Wave credibility.
BTW, he's lovely and humble about his tenure with Lizzy.
I also remember an interview by Scott Gorham where he mentioned that Midge - ever the New Romantic - regularly put on make up before Lizzy gigs which
first had the others cracking up and
then - not to be outdone - following suit after a while! So he taught them about male beauty aspects too.
![Mr. Green :mrgreen:](https://bassoutpost.com/Smileys/default/mrgreen.gif)
And when Midge left after the tour and Phil was begging him to stay on because they got along so well, he said another nice and philosophical thing to him: "
Somewhere there is a kid in the UK that has a black Les Paul underneath his bed and has been playing to your records note-perfect for all these years. He is the guy you should get, not me. I'm not that player."
And given that John Sykes joined Lizzy (after Snowy White hadn't felt comfortable in the role either) in the end, Midge's words were no less than prophetic.
He's complimentary about Lizzy to this day. I saw him a couple of years ago unplugged on a solo tour covering his whole oeuvre and at one point he announced a song like this:
"I have a dark past. Many of you here will not know this: I once played with Thin Lizzy. That's right, "Boys Are Back In Town"-Thin Lizzy. No, I'm not going to play a Thin Lizzy song with this here (raises his acoustic guitar) tonight, I'm not good enough. But Phil Lynott, he was such a great songwriter ... I tried to write a song about him that is in his style." And then proceeded to play a beautiful Irish-tinged ballad. (And, yes, he is a bread & butter acoustic guitar pick strummer, simplistic like Paul Weller.)
More about him and Phil (
after this thread has brought Centerfold to the glaring light of day, we need to make amends with Rob!):
https://www.pressreader.com/ireland/the-irish-mail-on-sunday/20150816/282213714557087