Is Johnny Winter, perchance, on remote control? Through some incredible duplicating memory process, he managed quite successfully to introduce the same combination of riffs into every number he and his remarkably lacklustre band tackled—from the only interesting tune of the evening, a new Rick Derringer track, "Roll With Me," to "Mean Mistreater" and a meticulously pedestrian "Good Love."
The band comprises former McCoy and perennial Winter sideman, bassist Randy Jo Hobbs, and former Texan Winter copyists Richard Hughes on drums and Floyd Radford on guitar. Radford mimics Winter's licks with roneo-like accuracy, Hughes' drumming is notable only for its absence of ferocity and drive, and Hobbs' bass playing is consequently unnecessarily fiddly, lacking in bite. Thus, the onus lies solely with Winter. It's hard to know whether his style has dated in comparison to the progress of his contemporaries, or whether he's actually got worse. For the most part, he seems unable to shoulder the burden without being brought to his knees.
An apparent lack of pre-publicity still assured that the house was almost full. Despite the fact that it's over two years since Winter was last here, and in the interim he's hardly made up for his absence with any hot material, the audience still seemed willing to bust its collective lungs in welcoming him. Their ardour, however, subsequently cooled.
Johnny—if I may address him thus—took the stage in rebuilt denims and a kind of blouse arrangement, seemingly a marriage between a tablecloth and a T-shirt, which, for much of the set, tangled itself within the workings of his Firebird. Radford, in lime green metallic trousers, silver boots, and metallic jacket, shook his boyish crop out of time with the music and tried to indulge in a little fitful movement with Johnny, who, as N.K. remarked acidly, moved about the stage like a senile Cracker scything a field. Hobbs, with a flat cap mounted at a rakish tilt, concentrated on working up a good hoodlum persona.
They were awful.
Other titles included "Black Cat Bone," "Golden Olden Days of Rock 'n' Roll," "Silver Train," "Boney Maronie," and "Stone County." The highlight of the evening arrived with Johnny's references to "moonshine whiskey" in "Mean Mistreater."
