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Half a century after George Thorogood first roared out of Delaware with a guitar, a snarl, and a slide that could peel the paint off a bar wall, the man still tours like he’s got something to prove.
He doesn’t — but he does anyway.
Thorogood & The Destroyers will bring The Baddest Show on Earth Tour to DECC Symphony Hall on March 25 with the Robert Cray Band in support. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. Showtime at 7:30. Tickets go on sale Friday, Nov. 7, at 10 a.m., through Ticketmaster.
For those keeping score, that’s more than 8,000 shows and 15 million albums sold since Thorogood turned One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer into a blue-collar anthem in 1977. The band has since become part of the American bloodstream — the soundtrack of every dive bar, ballpark, and garage where the amps go past ten and nobody apologizes for it.
“Could be the state of the world,” Thorogood said recently. “Maybe it’s the healing power of rock & roll. But when we hit the stage on any given night, I can guarantee that we’ll make you feel like a teenager again.”
You believe him. Not because he says it, but because he’s been proving it since Ford Pintos and tube TVs.
This isn’t nostalgia. Thorogood isn’t one of those legacy acts coasting on streaming royalties and casino circuits. He’s a lifer — one of the last truly American showmen still pounding the boards the old-fashioned way: loud, sweaty, and swinging like rock & roll still matters. And in rooms like Symphony Hall, it will.
His catalog reads like a jukebox greatest hits list: Move It On Over, Who Do You Love, I Drink Alone, Get a Haircut, and of course Bad to the Bone, the riff that refuses to die. It’s been used in everything from Christine to Terminator 2 to toothpaste commercials, but live, that growl still raises the hair on your arms.
Thorogood’s not just a throwback; he’s a time capsule that still breathes fire. At 75, his tone is nastier, his humor darker, his band tighter than most outfits half their age — which he’ll remind you of often.
“I defy bands half our age to put on a show like we do night after night,” he said.
That’s not boasting. That’s field data.
The Robert Cray Band opens — a pairing that makes perfect sense. Cray’s sleek, soulful blues and Thorogood’s bar-band thunder represent two sides of the same coin. Together, they’ll likely burn through more licks in one night than most modern guitarists know exist.
Thorogood’s recent honors — The B.B. King Award, Bo Diddley Centennial recognition, an invite to The Grand Ole Opry — feel almost symbolic. He’s become one of the last links to when rock & roll was built by hand, before it was branded, algorithmized, or sanitized for polite streaming playlists.
“It’s crazy to think that we’ve spent the last half century performing music we love for audiences who love what we do,” Thorogood said. “But when you’ve got the best job in the world, you can’t ever rest on your laurels. We not only work hard to bring our best, but to keep getting better. That’s the only mission. That’s rock & roll.”
If Duluth’s ready to remember what that sounds like — and feels like — it’ll find out March 25.
Bring earplugs. And bring someone who still remembers the smell of a bar at last call.
Because this isn’t a tribute tour. It’s a reminder that American rock & roll still has a pulse — and George Thorogood’s hand is on it.
