George Thorogood

House of Blues, Anaheim

I've seen George three times now. Each time at the HOB, and they've all been great. And louder than hell. At the first show I made the mistake of standing up front directly in line of George's speaker cabs. Ugh. The second time I stood off to the side, and I swear you could feel your teeth rattling from the noise. That aside, George kicks ass. He's in shape now, looks good and plays good to boot. It's unfortunate that the mostly older crowd seemed to be more interested in hearing nothing but his radio favorites and drinking than anything else, but oh well. At the second show he played a few numbers from his new CD which drew mixed reactions from the crowd. It wasn't the music's fault, these guys were just there to hear Bad to the Bone, etc., etc. and not much else was going to interest them. George's band consisted of another guitarist, a bass player, drummer, and a sax player. Short of the sax player, both performances used the same musicians. The guitarist played a selection of Gibsons, one of which seemed to have been signed by B.B. King, and did the more technical and traditional sounding leads, while George stuck to his slide. George's guitars ranged from the Guild hollow-bodies he uses for traditional playing to the beat up Gibson's he used for playing slide. Of course I liked the slide performances better, but it was all good. George is a great entertainer and had the crowd going pretty good, especially when he gave them exactly what they wanted ... hard rocking blues singing about drinking and women. He does a remarkably well job when it comes to covering those things. He's good with the kiddies to boot, hopefully giving a few of those at the front of the stage something to remember. George's shows are well worth the price of admission as well as the high probability that some drunk bastard is going to spill something on you at some point in the evening. Wear a raincoat and go if you must.

The Latest: As of my fifth show, George still kicks ass. This last show was the first time I watched him from the bar. It's much much more fun down in the pit up front. He's also as good when I'm sober as when I'm slightly tipsy ... the mark of a true showman, heh. This last show lasted almost 2.5 hours and consisted entirely of his favorites. The regular old-assed crowd loved him and so did I. Don't miss him next time ....

George's website can be reached here.