George Thorogood and The Destroyers — The Baddest Show on Earth: Greatest Hits Live
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Once a boneshaker, always a boneshaker.
On top of that, the man is also unanimously known for being “bad to the bone”—an expression he himself coined and then thrust into the everyday lexicon on the force of his stuttering growl and careening slide guitar. So successfully, in fact, that 1982’s Bad To the Bone, named after its evergreen title track, struck gold with 500,000 copies sold by 1985.
Decade after jolting decade confirms that George Thorogood, flanked by The Destroyers, has long been firing up hordes. Earwitness proof to that fact from across the span of 1978 through 2024: The Baddest Show on Earth: Greatest Hits Live, a portable powerplant that supplies 70 minutes of sustained blues-rocked energy. Music for your dancing and/or hellraising pleasure. And since the bandstand has forever been The Destroyers’ proving ground, all that need be done was to just roll tape at every stop along the way. Thorogood and the boys took it from there, providing the sonic heft, kinetic blast, infectious nature and outright raw glory associated with the band. Given its spread of years, cities and venues, this onstage collection stands apart within Thorogood’s deep discography.
“Ride On Josephine” starts the clock in 1978. That puts the band five years out from their first gig, an unceremonious takeover of a dormitory lounge at the University of Delaware, just a
stone’s throw from the suburban basements of nearby Wilmington where teenage plans of stardom were hatched. So, being booked at My Father’s Place—a former bowling alley in Roslyn, New York, that turned into hallowed ground for rockers, from Ramones and Iggy Pop to Blue Öyster Cult and Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers—was a major upgrade from that modest, inaugural campus engagement. Driven with the unstoppable insistence of a concrete wall on the move, this Destroyers’ performance packs a wallop far greater than Bo Diddley’s blueprint ever did in 1960.
And the crowd goes wild.
Thorogood was going places. That same year, El Mocambo—Toronto’s hallmark nightclub that baited in Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble to the Rolling Stones—got a solid rattling under the stomp from John Lee Hooker’s “Boogie Chillun.” You could fit two of the studio versions off Bad To the Bone inside this 12.5-minute marathon jam, and still have spare time to keep on boogieing at a breakneck pace.
Soon enough, The Destroyers’ trajectory landed them on a mega-stage in 1985. To be precise: mega-mega. On that beyond-hot July 13th afternoon, temperatures soared to 90plus degrees in south Philadelphia. Not to be outdone, the mass audience packed inside John F. Kennedy Stadium soared to 90,000plus. Correct, an ocean of people. It was there—at Live Aid—Thorogood performed “Who Do You Love?,” alongside its maker, Bo Diddley.
Yet five years and five months earlier, on a chilled February day in 1980, that same number, “Who Do You Love?,” was smoked at Atlanta’s Agora Theater. No guest was needed, though, to make the song burst. More than enough firepower was at hand for its concussive beat and Gibson rumble to ecstatically overload every nerve in the building. Pushing things over the top is that little move where George runs his finger along the length of the neck of his guitar, as if shooting a chill right down the spine.
And the crowd goes wild, again.
Sure, George and his guitar actually have been found alone and acoustic. 2017’s Party of One was (predominantly) that rare exception. (Other than the pre-Destroyer days, when busking under the spell of John Hammond.)
Not here, though.
Here, he’s in constant conventional form: fully reinforced and extra electrified. His wingmen are faithful, indeed, with hardly any turnover since the band’s inception. Heard here are bassist Bill Blough, second guitarists Ron Smith (Destroyers v1.0) and Jim Suhler (Destroyers v2.0), as well as drummer Jeff Simon, the perpetual source of all the thunderclaps and earthquakes ever since that Delaware debut. When present (which is more often than not), the sax is anything but gratuitous. Take, for instance, “One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer.” During the 11-minute story-song groove—stitched together from bits of John Lee Hooker’s “House Rent Blues” and “House Rent Boogie” plus his “One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer” (not Amos Milburn’s tame “One Scotch, One Bourbon, One Beer”)—Thorogood’s ferocious fretwork gets pitted against Hank Carter’s muscular saxophone. For performances featured since 2020, Buddy Leach is the one blowing burly attitude, as when Howlin' Wolf gets both a nod and an ooh-ooh-ooh-wee by way of “Howlin’ For My Baby.”
And, you guessed it, the crowd goes wild.
The famed show that blew out the Bradford Ballroom (captured as Live in Boston, 1982: The
Complete Concert) gets justifiably tapped for a trio of tracks. “Move It On Over” hits first. Hank Williams wrote the ode about being banished to the proverbial doghouse after a night out on the town; he performed it as a honky-tonk hop, complete with fiddle and gliding steel guitar. Thorogood instead makes it breathe fire with a phenomenally blistered and bottlenecked attack. Elmore James’ “Madison Blues” strikes next, with another phenomenally blistered and bottlenecked attack. Except this one makes hearts fibrillate twice, thanks to an adrenaline ambush hiding behind a false ending. And, lastly, Thorogood’s own audaciously rousing “Bad To The Bone” arrives. Yes, phenomenally blistered and bottlenecked, too.
And, each and every time, the crowd goes wild.
Aside from those three, however, everything else on this 11-track roundup has never seen the light of day.
In other words, you had to have been personally going wild inside Kansas City’s Uptown Theater or the Cape Cod Melody Tent or any of the other featured halls or hotspots to have experienced these moments. So, thanks, George, for digging out a slew of performances from the vaults (four for the LP; eight for the CD and digital editions) that have remained unheard ever since. Until now, that is.
Perfect example: “Steppin’ Out.” The instrumental, distinguished by its downbeats plunging like lead safes falling from the sky, makes its first appearance on a Destroyers album. Memphis Slim came up with the song in 1959, which then jumped overseas in 1966 and into Eric Clapton’s hands with the Blues Breakers. Two years later, Clapton pinched it again; this time for his newest venture via Cream, who sprawled it out past the 13-minute mark. Fast forward to a Texas night in 2022. There, The Destroyers stripped it back to a quick punch that cuts to the chase in well under three minutes, while doubling as a soapbox for Suhler’s guitar. “Tail Dragger,” with its gnarly riff, nicely spotlights another of Suhler’s meltdowns.
Fast forward even more, right up to 2024. That’s when “Born To Be Bad” rocked and roared Sarasota, Florida, to its feet. The title cut from 1988’s Born To Be Bad, like anything else in Thorogood’s catalogue, hasn’t lost an ounce of its capacity to get audiences shouting along.
If anything fresher than 2024 is needed, you’re quite in luck. Because ‘The Baddest Show on Earth’ can be experienced in the flesh, when Thorogood and the Destroyers rumble into Red Bank, New Jersey, on September 2 before conquering Ridgefield, Connecticut, on September 7.
Both options—The Baddest Show on Earth: Greatest Hits Live recording and ‘The Baddest Show on Earth’ tour—save you a spot for when the crowd goes wild.
Label: Craft Recordings
Release date: 6/12/26
Artist website: George Thorogood.com
Label website: Craft Recordings.com
Reviewed by Dennis Rozanski
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