Casualty List Aside, NRBQ Alive, Kicking

Rock ‘n’ roll math: Grateful Dead + chops - burnout = NRBQ.

NRBQ abides and endures. This curious group of roots-hippie musicians, in its 28th year as a band, has withstood a plethora of personnel changes, the unsteady tides of popular taste, a half-dozen record labels, the effects of untold alcohol consumption, the ravages of Father Time plus Lord only knows how many other obstacles, and still it shines brightly.

Many would bemoan the most recent departure of longtime guitarist-singer Al Anderson, but as the group proved Sunday night at the Coach House, NRBQ has a whole lot of life left.

Keyboardist-singer Terry Adams, bassist-singer Joey Spampinato, drummer Tom Ardolino and Spampinato’s brother Johnny, who is taking over for Anderson, put on a marathon, two-hour-plus set for a small but enthusiastic crowd that basked in the glow of undiluted musical charisma at work.

Adams recently likened the group to a Timex watch that takes a licking and keeps on ticking, but the analogy does NRBQ a disservice--it’s more like a Rolex with a few chips in the crystal.

True, Anderson was an essential element in NRBQ chemistry--as a brilliant guitarist and songwriter, as a singer and as a sheer presence. And while the younger Spampinato is competent but no real equalizer for the loss of the big guy, NRBQ is still the match and more for any touring band in the world.

Adams was a show unto himself. Mugging like a rubber-faced monkey, playing with his elbows and fists, performing entertaining dork dances and playing like Thelonious Monk, Floyd Cramer and Meade Lux Lewis, Adams is a one-man whirlwind of showmanship, musicianship and rock ‘n’ roll energy.

Joey S., the Q’s straight man, continues to watch every move Adams makes with a mixture of amusement and “what’s-the-nutcase-gonna-do-now” bewilderment after almost three decades of playing together--a remarkable feat of perpetual spontaneity.

Joey, for his part, continues to be in reedy, beautiful voice, and Ardolino remains one of rock’s truly great drummers.

The group performed such Q faves as “12 Bar Blues,” “When It Rains at the Drive-In,” “If I Don’t Have You,” “Wild Weekend” and Anderson’s “Riding in My Car” along with a batch of catchy new tunes and such typically disparate covers as “Skip to My Lou” and Elvis Presley’s “Too Much.”

Pop, rockabilly, honky-tonk, Tex-Mex, bebop, even beat poetry--NRBQ did it all with the customary refusal to be musically fenced in and the pure joy of performance.

Opening Sunday night’s show were two better-than-average Orange County groups. Shook Up World proffered slick, professional pop-funk and seemed to draw as well as the headliner, while the green-but-tasty Scott Fairbanks & Mojohand served up a promising set of steamy blue-eyed soul and blues.