I was playing a George Thorogood playlist on the way to the gig tonight and, when it finished, Spotify did what Spotify does and threw up a suggested extra song: “Tush” by ZZ Top.
Which, as it happens, was strangely fitting.
Because it was after hearing Eliminator when I was about 10 years old that I went to the record library near where I lived and got out a George Thorogood record, because I’d heard “Bad To The Bone”.
So, if this really is the last time George Thorogood And The Destroyers ever play this country, as he’s claiming on the Baddest Show On Earth tour, then quite frankly, I had to be here.
But before all that…
Let’s go.
“Oh boy, this is gonna be good,” says Jared James Nichols. But there’s extra feeling here tonight. The last time he was in Wolverhampton, back in November, drummer Ryan Rice was taken ill mid-set, and you felt for them. They deserved a good one.
They got it.
Nichols doesn’t so much arrive as plug himself straight into the mains. “Ghost” has that groove immediately, thick and alive, and with Brian Weaver on bass and Rice back where he belongs behind the kit, the power trio locks in from the off.
They go “Way Back”, and that feels fitting. There’s a bit of history here now, a little unfinished business too, and they attack it like they’ve come to settle the score.
“Killing Time” proves what Nichols does best: texture, tone, feel, then suddenly a reminder that, my God, he can play guitar.
“Baby Can You Feel It” is perfect for tonight. This is a George Thorogood crowd, after all, so boogie is very much the order of the evening, but Nichols turns it into a singalong too. “Running Hot” is an absolute beauty, all fire and swagger, while “Keep The Light On Mama” underlines the point: this stuff can be as heavy as concrete, but these boys do swang, as the song says.
And honestly, there’s not much better than a power trio absolutely bringing it.
’Nuff said.
“We’re gonna play two sorts of music,” George Thorogood says early on. “Rock and roll. And if someone’s gonna get arrested for rock n roll, it might as well be me.”
That’s George Thorogood in one line, really. Half joke, half mission statement, all swagger.
The intro tape is “Eve Of Destruction”, and fittingly, for all the darkness in that song, there’s hope in it too. You look around and see a young kid dancing with his dad later on and think, actually, the world might be alright after all. George thinks so too, as the little lad is on stage by the end.
Then Thorogood and The Destroyers arrive, and “Rock Party” does exactly what it says. Nice of him to write the review for me, really.
“Who Do You Love?” is rock star stuff, pure and simple. Thorogood makes it his own, then grins, “I hope it’s me.” It is, obviously.
“Mama Talk To Your Daughter” follows, and while this is a celebration, it also needs saying: almost nobody uses a saxophone in rock n roll like this band. Buddy Leach doesn’t decorate the songs, he drives them.
“I Drink Alone” is as bluesy as blues can be, and nobody makes it sound quite so filthy, even if Thorogood does pause to comb his hair.
Then comes “One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer”, and the whole thing becomes theatre. He wears the shirt of a fan in the front row, performs the first part solo, then deadpans: “I take it some of you have heard this story before. Do you wanna hear it again?”
Be in no doubt. Wolverhampton did.
“Let’s start the show,” he jokes before “Cocaine Blues”, which he dedicates to Johnny and June Carter Cash. After that, The Destroyers destroy on their own for a bit, and that matters, because this is not merely the George Thorogood show. It never has been. Jeff Simon is still there behind the kit, an original Destroyer, and with Jim Suhler on guitar and Buddy Leach on sax, the whole thing swings, snarls and stomps like a bar-room gang with half a century of road miles behind them.
“Do you want a rock song?” he asks before “Gear Jammer”.
Silly question.
“Get A Haircut” arrives after a toast and an admission of his debt to The Rolling Stones, but then Thorogood gets to the nub of it. “How does it feel to be 17 years old again?” he asks.
That’s the trick. That’s what this does. For an hour and a half, knees, backs, age, cynicism and the outside world can all do one.
Then, of course, “Bad To The Bone”. “If we do it great, it’s on us,” he says. “If we do it lousy, it’s on you.”
No pressure, Wolves. But they don’t do it lousy. They couldn’t. That riff still sounds like it was dug out of the dirt with a pickaxe.
“Gloria” does Van Morrison proud, Thorogood strutting about the stage without his guitar, all grin and nerve, before “Move It On Over” puts to bed the rumour that rock n roll is dead one song at a time.
And then Jared James Nichols comes back out for the encore of “Born To Be Bad”, and it is class. One blues-rock bruiser joining another, two generations of volume, feel and mischief meeting in the middle.
“Sometimes I’m so full of shit even I can’t believe it,” Thorogood says near the end. Then he looks at his guitar and adds: “I might be full of shit, but I can play this motherfucker.”
He can. Christ, he can.
And maybe that’s the point. In “Born To Be Bad”, when he sings about being “bad till the day I was through”, it doesn’t sound like a gag anymore. It sounds like a life’s work.
Almost 50 years since he first came to England, George Thorogood is still doing what he was born to do: playing rock n roll and, above all else, entertaining people.
If this really was goodbye, then it was goodbye the right way.
