Thorogood at the Tent
I was a rock and roll guy before I started listening to George Throrogood. When I was a teenager, about the only blues song I knew was B.B. King’s “The Thrill Is Gone.”
But then the Boston radio stations started playing Thorogood’s first two LPs and through his blues-rock I became familiar with Robert Johnson, Willie Dixon, Elmore James and John Lee Hooker, who became one of my blues favorites.
Throrogood went on to break out of the Boston scene. He toured as an opening act for the Rolling Stones in 1982 (a live recording from a post-tour show back in Boston was recently released by Rounder Records), the same year that his “Bad to the Bone” became a monster MTV hit.
Nearly three decades later, “the worldwide touring machine” (as he was introduced) still knows how to win over a crowd. In front of me at the Aug. 4 show at the Cape Cod Melody Tent, two young women who spent the night doing sultry dances to the music had seats adjacent to a family of four that included a father and son wearing matching “One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer” T-shirts.
Thorogood took the stage wearing sunglasses (which he took off midway through the first song), a bandana, a black sleeveless shirt, black pants and white cowboy boots – an outfit that pretty much screams “I’m a badass musician.” And if you didn’t get the point, he moved around with duck walks and twirls and jabbing steps. It’s barely an exaggeration to say he had a different gesture for every note he played.
Midway through the show, he stared into the reflection of the bass drum, combed his hair and pursed his lips. He introduced “Born Lover,” a Muddy Waters song that’s on Thorogood’s latest CD, “The Dirty Dozen,” by saying his guitarist dedicated the song to all the ladies in the house, his bass player and drummer dedicated it to all the girls in the house, but he dedicated it to all the women in the house. Bad to the bone, indeed.
Thorogood doesn’t just expect an audience reaction; he demands one, using hand motions to coax a little more noise from his fans. He served up “Who Do You Love” with rattlesnake tongue flicks and mock stuttered his way through the “bad” in “Bad to the Bone.” While he saved that song for last (“Foreplay is over. It’s time to get down to business,” he said as an introduction), it was an earlier song, “Move It On Over,” that was the highlight of the night, as his band, the Destroyers, provided a churning backdrop for Thorogood’s guitar fireworks.
Opener Tom Hambridge has worked with Thorogood, Buddy Guy, Susan Tedeschi, Meat Loaf and others as a writer and producer. One of his songs, Gretchen Wilson’s version of “I Got Your Country Right Here,” is being released as a radio single this week.
Hambridge played a nice range, from some blues-rock in the styles of Thorogood and ZZ Top to the Lynyrd Skynyrd-esque “Nineteen.” His backing band, the Rattlesnakes, included Sal Baglio (formerly of Boston legends the Stompers) and Jim Scoppa, who added some swampy style on one song. Judging from the line at the merchandise booth after his set, Hambridge made a big impression on Thorogood’s fans.