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Sunday, May 31, 2015

Blues rock rains down on CMAC opening weekend, B+

What: Concert Review
Who: Brian Setzer's Rockabilly Riot with George Thorogood & The Destroyers
When: May 30th 2015
Where: CMAC
Why: As Part of the 2015 Upstate NY Summer concert Series
Above: Brian Setzer's Rockabilly Riot performs @ Cmac Saturday June 30th, 2015

Despite a lukewarm performance by George Thorogood and the Destroyers, opening group Brian Setzer's Rockabilly Riot were by far the highlight of the evenling last night at CMAC. They performed for a 2 hour set and had an encore, proving that old guys can still rock.





Last night, the beginning of the summer 2015 concert series began with CMAC's first event of the year. George Thorogood & The Destroyers headlined the show with Brian Setzer's Rockabilly Riot and Davy Knowles opening up the show. With threatening weather and bursts of downpouring rain and lightning, the concert continued and was right on time.
Dark gloomy rain clouds rolled over CMAC throughout the evening, and bursts of rain let the venue call in the 300 people or in the lawn down to the seats, which is always a nice thing to do at any event with an outdoor venue.

However, the rain didn't stop people from filling in the seats which were around seventy five percent full for the evening. It was a good crowd mixture, with people in there late twentys and early thirties joining in the biker guys and 'rock n roll' junkies. Surprisingly, there were just as many females if not more than males in the crowd for George and the Rockabilly Riot, showing that women enjoy the blues as much as men do.

 Gracing the stage at around 7:15, Brian Setzer's Rockabiilly Riot didn't leave until around 9:20 with an encoure, an impressive two hour time set. They deserved it. The group rocked out and wailed on their guitars, keyboard and drums to the aweing crowd. By the mid part of the set, the majority of the crowd at CMAC were up on their feet without being told to do so, swining and dancing to the many cover songs the Rockabilly Riot band played.  These included great verisons of 'Great Balls of Fire' and 'Folson Prison Blues.'

'It's not rocketscience, It's just Rockabilly,' lead singer and guitarist Brian Setzer explained before jamming out to another tune. The band was a great mixture of blues and rock, a perfect opener for Goerge Thorogood. BSRR stole the night.

With his classic introduction of 'Rock n Roll's heavyweight champions of the World, George Thorogood & The Destroyers were good, however they couldn't come up to snuff with how great Brian Setzer was. Even George must have known, because the wild crowd seemed to actually hush up and sit down as soon as he began playing.
George played a setlist including many of his greatest hits, including 'Bad to the Bone,' 'Move it On Over' and 'One Bourbon, one Scotch and One Beer'. George does have a sense of humor to him, declairing 'I'm so full of shit sometimes I don't even know what i'm talking about.', which was a bit of a nice change form the opening group. However, there were some big drawbacks that made his set a bit dissapointing.
George Thorogood only played for an hour, and didn't have encoure. It seemed that near the end of the set, he invited Brian Setzer out to jam with him, but Brian didn't come out on stage witch was a bit of a scratch on the head. While artists can do whatever they please with their songs, George changed the lyrics to many of his classic rock songs, which is good, but people want to hear his original voice and words without as little twists as possible. The set also didn't include several songs that would have been nice if he would have played them, including 'Madison Blue Shoes'. Despite all of this, George was still good, and he can still play the guitar and perform his songs well. The Destroyers were all on fire as usual.

Grade:
Brian Setzer's Rockabilly Riot: A-
George Thorogood & The Destroyers: B-
Overall Grade: B or B+

Photo Credit Leo Pareti
Brian Setzer Rockabilly Riot @ CMAC:





The Crowd shortly before George gets on stage:



George Thorogood live @ CMAC May 30th, 2015:




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