Packed like sardines inside a sweltering rock club on the hottest day ever recorded in France. We must be out of our minds. What else could persuade a room full of mostly middle-aged men to voluntarily spend two hours inside what has effectively become a blast furnace? Rock and roll, of course. George Thorogood has rolled into town with the world's baddest blues band in tow, and no amount of heat is going to keep this audience away. Besides, once he plugs into his Marshall, the temperature somehow climbs another few degrees.
George Thorogood & The Destroyers belongs to that increasingly rare breed of bands that can still honestly be described as a great bar band, despite spending decades filling theatres around the world. Like Southside Johnny & The Asbury Jukes, they have never lost touch with their roots. Their repertoire moves effortlessly between hard-driving rock and roll, greasy boogie, honky-tonk, jump blues and Chicago blues, stitched together by an irresistible backbeat and the sort of swagger that cannot be taught.
Thorogood himself remains the consummate showman. Between songs he flirts shamelessly with the women in the audience, peppers the evening with a few delightfully lascivious one-liners and generally behaves exactly as one hopes George Thorogood would. The persona may be larger than life, but it never feels forced. As a guitarist, he has little interest in dazzling anyone with technical gymnastics. Every lick serves a purpose. He goes straight for the gut, delivering riffs and solos that make bodies move rather than jaws drop. There are plenty of virtuosos in the world. Tonight, the objective is much simpler: make people dance. A shot of undistilled rock n' roll. Just what the doctor ordered.
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