8 November 2022 – Fortitude Music Hall, Brisbane – words by Joe Harbour – pictures by Bec Harbour
Punters were there really early to catch the second night of George Thorogood and the Destroyers at the Fortitude Music Hall. While there was a solid showing of the expected older crowd, there was also a considerable amount of younger people there as well.
Kicking off the night was Hamish Anderson, a Melbourne blues guitarist and songwriter. Anderson is only 31 years of age but he has shared the stage and opened for some huge names including Robert Cray, Los Lobos, Gary Clark Jr and the legendary B.B King. While not familiar with Anderson’s work, the set was a fantastic warm up for what was to come.
The lights went down and ‘Eve of Destruction’ by Barry McGuire played over the PA, a tongue in cheek reminder that we were about to see George Thorogood and the Destroyers! The crowd was already whooping and cheering when George and the Destroyers arrived on stage. George arrived on stage and received the accolades with open arms, then launched into ‘Rock Party’ and followed up in quick succession with ‘Who Do You Love’ their iconic Bo Diddley cover.
George Thorogood is the consummate showman on stage, he interacted with the crowd like he was greeting old friends and the crowd loved it. He played a Sonics cover next, ‘Shot Down’ and then The Strangeloves ‘Night Time’, telling the crowd that “Brisbane was the best”.
The crowd were pretty warmed up by the time ‘I Drink Alone’ came up, with several hundred voices singing along with the chorus. Then some noodly-boogie blues led up to the classic, ‘One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer’ with the punters helping out on the chorus for that one too. In fact every song, George and the Destroyers had a choir of hundreds helping out on backing vocals.
Around mid-set, George introduced his band including John Dillinger (Jim Suhler) on guitar and Pretty Boy Floyd (Buddy Leach) on sax (as well as drummer Jeff Simon and bassist Bill Blough) and continued the banter and jokes with his band and the audience throughout the set. After ‘Gear Jammer’ they played another audience sing-along ‘Get a Haircut’ and the crowd knew every word.
Then the iconic chords rang out across the Fortitude Music Hall for ‘Bad to the Bone’ and the crowd went off, there was blokes playing air-guitar along, women up on peoples shoulders (we did think a top might be lost at one point), the slide guitar was on point and everyone was notched up a level on their good time.
After some banter with the audience they played a cover of ‘Tequila’ (I reckon some people would have had no voice next day as everyone sang that too). Then a fantastic cover of Hank Williams’ ‘Move it on Over’. The set was over with a few calls for one more song. George and the Destroyers obliged with ‘Born to be Bad’
With close to 50 years under their belt and no signs of slowing down, George Thorogood and the Destroyers absolutely destroyed the Fortitude Music Hall on Tuesday night with the crowd exiting the venue to the sounds of ‘Advanced Australia Fair’.
