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Classic Rock Corner

Aftermath: George Thorogood's Raucous Rock Party Destroys House of Blues

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Thorogood and the Destroyers is as good a gateway drug as any to study the blues. Any of his '70s albums are troves of influence and the art of the riff. He has never acted with any pretense or solemnity about what he does, which is refreshing as hell to anyone bored with younger blues guys taking themselves too seriously.

To hear something as commonplace as 1982's "Bad to the Bone" in a concert hall with 1,000 deranged middle-aged blues rockers will jar something loose in you. The song makes people innately giddy, even if by now to most irony-ridden folks it has since passed into laughable hamminess.

Without Thorogood, we would have no Black Keys, very little '80s outlaw country, and the snakeskin headband industry would be in disarray. Meanwhile in Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Arnold Schwarzenegger would be wasting dudes while listening to the J Geils Band instead of "Bad To The Bone". That's a shitty world, if you ask Aftermath.

Thorogood isn't ironic, he's iconic.

For more photos from the show, see our slideshow here.

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Craig Hlavaty
Contact: Craig Hlavaty