The Killer Is at the Keyboard: Jerry Lee Lewis Still Rocks

The only explanation for why, in 2000, rock firebrand Jerry Lee Lewis is still among the living after his many brushes with death is that he probably scares the hell out of the Grim Reaper himself.

Though his concert Wednesday at the Galaxy Theatre in Santa Ana was by and large a meat-and-potatoes Killer set, as always there were flashes of the infamous volatility that have made the Ferriday Fireball one of rock’s true originals and one of its genuinely frightening practitioners.

When he turned to longtime sideman Kenneth Lovelace during his opening salvo of “Roll Over Beethoven” and barked “Play, Kenny!” it wasn’t an invitation, it was an order.

But Lewis also retains his devilish sense of humor--evidenced musically in the brick-wall stops he uses on most songs--as well as his sense of old-time religion, which together have always helped keep his demons at bay, if only by millimeters.

The 64-year-old Hall of Famer has filled out and looked healthier than he has since the 1985 surgery on a bleeding ulcer that left him positively frail for years. Yet he’s never lost his ferocity as a singer or a pianist, treating the keyboard alternately like a lover and a punching bag.

That’s also probably why rock’s original punk drew as many tattooed teens in leather jackets Wednesday as gray-haired fans waltzing down Memory Lane.