Pop Music Reviews : Bar-Band Boogie ‘n’ Berry to the Bone

George Thorogood’s appeal rests firmly on the persona he constructed when he made his surprise breakthrough 15 years ago: the mock truculent Joe Everyman guitar hero playing everyone’s bar-band favorites, epitomized by his own anthemic “Bad to the Bone.”

Thorogood has so resolutely stuck to his retro path since then that his pomp-filled, swirling purple-light entrance at the Universal Amphitheatre on Monday was a shock. Not to worry--the guitarist immediately kicked into Chuck Berry’s “Hello Little Girl” to launch a two-hour slab of boogie ‘n’ Berry that did little to alter Thorogood’s position as a take-it-or-leave-it proposition.

Thorogood and his band, the Destroyers, relentlessly pounded out thick chunks of up-tempo, 1-4-5 chord progressions that kept the audience on its feet, but only occasionally paid attention to dynamics. The group still remembered its exuberant bar-band roots as Thorogood, second guitarist Steve Chrismar and saxophonist Hank Carter constantly headed to the front of the stage during solos.

Second-billed Marshall Crenshaw’s pop-rock approach hasn’t changed much over time either--the early standbys “Someday, Someway” and “Cynical Girl” fit in seamlessly with his more recent material. But his set would have benefited from something stronger than his self-effacing, nice-guy routine, which worked against the hearty applause his songwriting craftsmanship earned.