Press enter after choosing selection

J. Geils

J. Geils image
Parent Issue
Day
17
Month
December
Year
1975
OCR Text

J. Geils

When the J. Geils Band hits Detroit it's like rock and roll never went away. The Motor City is a second home for the Beantown bombers -- they recorded their live album ("Full House") over on the east side, after all --and whatever they might do anywhere else, in concert or in the recording studio, these cats have their stuff together when they roll into Cobo Hall.

One of the few white bands as interesting as their audience, the Geils gang banged out favorite after favorite from their extensive urban-blues repertoire to wave after wave of energy and adulation from the near-capacity crowd. "Southside Shuffle," "Stop! Wait a Minute," "Gonna Find Me a New Love," "I Musta Got Lost," "Lookin' for a Love" (the pitiful male-chauvinist national anthem), the incredible "Whammer Jammer" (featuring Magic Dick on the Mississippi saxophone), "Ain't Nothin' But a House Party," and a string of others were broken up by the band's cherished Motown numbers: Junior Walker's "Shoot Your Shot" (Magic Dick's harmonica to the fore again), the Contours' inelegant "First I Look at the Purse," and their own Motor City Rock and Roll Classic, "Detroit Breakdown."

Naturally nothing could slake the long thirst of the crowd for something hot to move to but more and more of the same - thus the four smoking encores, beginning with "Truck Drivin' Man" and finally ending, half an hour later, with the Jamaican-flavored "Give It To Me" and the stomping, roaring, joyous cries for still more of that magic stuff. J. Geils, Peter Wolf, Magic Dick, Steven Bladd, Seth Justman & Co. bopped off-stage at last as hip as they'd come on, and if everyone in the place didn't go home happy, it was sure as hell their own fault - J. Geils just plain did it to death.

One wishes there were something happy to say about the opening act, former Spooky Tooth-er Gary Wright and his three-keyboard, no-guitar band, but this reporter could find nothing of interest in his set except the positive reception he was given by the crowd. Wright looked like TV and sounded like an FM rock station, with the disadvantage that there was no way to turn him off until he deigned to leave the stage. Ah, but that Peter Wolf and his crew mmmm, mmmm, mmmm! Now that is rock and roll, dear readers, and well worth waiting for. If there was just some way to get those goddamn seats off the main floor. . . . -- John Sinclair

photo: Barbara Weinberg

Peter Wolf