Every night with George Thorogood & The Destroyers is, to quote the title of their set opener Tuesday night, a “Rock & Roll Party.” George and the boys brought “The Baddest Show On Earth” to Capitol One Hall, playing down and dirty, greasy blues-rock with a healthy serving of over-the-top, humorous bluster.
Thorogood leans hard into his oversized, boastful rock & roll persona. “Sometimes,” he said, “I’m so full of shit, I can’t believe myself.” His signature tune, “Bad to the Bone,” is a series of escalating, absurd claims. He quipped that The Destroyers were out on probation and promised he’d do his best to get arrested. He slipped a few double entendres into his stage banter. George recognizes and embraces his ridiculousness, and he has fun with it — and, in turn, so does his audience.
For all the humor, there’s also certain reverence for the musical traditions that influenced him. That showed in the covers he played. Blues is his biggest influence of course. (He played Bo Diddley’s “Who Do You Love?”, JB Lenoir’s “Mama Talk To You Daughter,” and Amos Milburn’s “One Scotch, One Bourbon, One Beer.”)
“We don’t play country and western,” George said, “but we do make exceptions,” like Hank Williams’s “Move It Over.” (There’s plenty that could be said about the relationships between country and blues, which both developed among the common people of the South.) Thorogood dedicated the traditional “Cocaine Blues” to Johnny and June Carter Cash. He mentioned that met Johnny, who “thought I was cool.” Rock & roll was represented from their walk-out music, ’60s protest anthem “Eve of Destruction,” to covers of Don’t Panic’s “Get a Haircut,” which he dedicated to Jeff Beck, and Them’s “Gloria.”
George is no slouch when it comes to writing his own songs, and he has a few bangers. In addition to “Rock Party” and “Bad To The Bone,” he did “I Drink Alone” and “Gear Jammer,” and he finished the set with “Born To Be Bad.”
Watch the official music video for “I Drink Alone” by George Thorogood & The Destroyers on YouTube:
Blues-rocker Alistair Greene and his band, out of Austin, opened the show, mirroring Thorogood’s approach with a mix of covers and original sings. As a blues-rock guitar from Austin in black clothes and a black cowboy, he owes a clear debt to Stevie Ray Vaughan. His set included tunes by Albert King and Rory Gallagher, and his own “Livin’ Today,” “Standing Out Loud,” and “Slow Burn.”
I listen to a lot of serious singer-songwriters who have some weighty material. An ex once said, “You listen to the saddest shit!” She’s not wrong. I love that stuff, but sometimes you just want to rock out, laugh a little, and have a good time — to have a “Rock & Roll Party.” We can forget that the point is entertainment is to have fun. It’s possible to this while staying honoring the music, to take the craft — but not oneself– seriously, and The Destroyers are dead serious about being a tight, well-oiled machine.
That makes George Thorogood & The Destroyers a welcome breath of fresh air in my music calendar.
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