August 7, 2018

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George Thorogood and The Destroyers brought down the house with their own style of rockin’ blues on Sunday night at the Hard Rock Rocksino.

 

Thorogood and the boys have been at it a long time.  Drummer Jeff Simon and bassist Billy Blough have been in the Destroyers for over forty years.  Guitarist Jim Suhler and saxophonist/pianist Buddy Leach are the relative newcomers as they have only been in the band 20 and 15 years respectively.

 

The thing that you’re going to get from a George Thorogood concert is a no frills, in your face, rock and roll show.  That’s exactly what the band delivered for 90 minutes on Sunday night.

 

Opening with “Ain’t Coming Home Tonight,” Thorogood never slowed down. He is truly a master of the slide guitar and his playing was superb.

 

The band threw in a good mix of covers; Bo Diddley’s “Who Do You Love,” The Sonics “Shot Down” and The Strangelove’s “Night Time” as well as some originals like “Gear Jammer” and “Get A Haircut.”

 

Thorogood mentioned that it’s “been two years since we last played here.  That’s about two years too long!” Which brought a rousing response from the nearly sold-out crowd.  

 

In the middle of the set he played his two songs about drinking back to back: “I Drink Alone” and his cover of “One Bourbon, One Scotch and One Beer.”  On the latter he gave his public service announcement of “Don’t Drink and Drive.” He suggested to “Have your buddy drive you home. Have your girlfriend drive you home.  Have your buddy’s girlfriend drive you home!”

 

When the familiar sounds of “Bad To The Bone” bounced off the Hard Rock walls, everyone got on their feet to sing-along and play their best air guitar.  Images of Thorogood and Bo Diddley playing pool came to my mind from that iconic video from years past.

 

The band came back to encore with “Twenty Dollar Gig” and a surprising “Move It On Over” which has not been in the set list for the past few months.  A final encore of “Born To Be Bad” was played before the band took their final bow.

 

The man is definitely bad, in the best sense of the word.  

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Review and photos by Greg Drugan