It only took 40 years, but Wilmington, Delaware blues rocker George Thorogood and the Destroyers finally made his Lethbridge debut to a rowdy group of fans at the Enmax Centre, Saturday, May 5.
I haven’t seen him since a big outdoor show in High River, back in 1996 when he was sharing the weekend with Deep Purple and Molly Hatchet, Rik Emmett and other classic rock icons, and was pleasantly surprised to see he doesn’t appear to have aged since then visually or aurally.
He began an intense set of rock and roll blues music with a good long jam on “Been Shot Down/Ain’t Coming Home” and brought out one of his big guns right after on “Who Do You Love.”
Thorogood was accompanied by his band the Destroyers including bassist Bill Blough, saxophonist Buddy Leach, rhythm guitarist Jim Suhler and drummer Jeff Simon had a wide open stage to race across. A gorilla mask with a Canada hat on sat at the foot of an white and blue illuminated drum kit.
He just released a new semi-acoustic album album “Party of One,” but didn’t play much of that as this show was all about loud, gritty, intense rock and roll and blues classics, which the band delivered in spades.
He has charted numerous hits and played pretty much all of the. By the fourth song, “Right Time“ somebody had thrown a bra on stage, which a roadie had to scurry across the stage to remove.
“I’m dangerous,” Thorogood declared with a grin as he blasted into another big jam on his hit mash up of John lee Hooker’s “House Rent Boogie/One Bourbon, One Scotch , One Beer.”
As the crowd started shouting requests during a much deserved breather, Thorogood observed “ It’s taken us 40 years to make it to Lethbridge and we’re going to enjoy every second of it.”
For a more surreal moment, a roadie in a white and black luchador mask, raced across the stage to being him his open tuned white, hollow body Gibson, prompting him to quip “some people will do anything to get on stage.”
The new guitar allowed him to deliver some dirty slide guitar on big hits like “Bad to the Bone” which featured “B.T.T.B.” in flashing blue lights above the stage which changed to the gigantic initials “G.T. in yellow lights as the crowd sang along. He followed it up with another crowd favourite, ’90s smash “Get A Haircut and Get A Real Job.”
He took a quick breather off stage to change to a Lethbridge Hurricanes T-shirt while his rhythm guitarist took a lead spot, and returned, sans, guitar to belt out blues classic “Taildragger.”
He took a solo and segued into “Keep On Rockin Till the Day I Die.”
Thorogood followed it up of his hit version of “Move It On Over,” which had the crowd singing along again before leaving the stage again to change shirts for an encore of “Born to be Bad,” which was a great way to end the show.
Tampa bluesman Damon Fowler and bassist Todd Edmonds and drummer Justin Headley had the tough job of opening the show, but quickly won over t
he audience with his pleasantly, plaintive tenor voice , reminiscent of Robert Cray and tasteful guitar playing.
He played through a quick set of more soulful, R and B tinged original music and, what I think was a cover of “Crossroads”.
He brought a out a lap steel guitar for one song mid - set.
The country tinged “Old Fools, Bar Stools and Me,” made an instant connection with the crowd.
— by Richard Amery, L.A. Beat Editor
