This was sort of a Lords of the Highway family extravaganza.  First off was the Lord’s new drummer, Pete Yorko, doing a solo set playing guitar and singing.  No offense to Pete, who later on turned in a fine job pounding the skins for The Lords, but this sort of thing seems better suited to coffee shops than rock shows.  The guy wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t what I had come to hear. 

Next up was The Pistons, which was pretty much The Lords of the Highway with a different drummer playing a set of country and rockabilly standards.  The Pistons played the songs more traditionally than if they were doing the same tunes with The Lords.  It was a solid entertaining set and highlights for me included upright bass player Sugar’s take on “These Boots are Made for Walking” and guitarist Dennis Bell’s rendition of “Folsom Prison Blues”. 

The Jacknife Powerbombs took the evening in a decidedly more punk rock direction for their set of blazing originals.  This band has really gotten good lately, and sounded like a full on rock ‘n’ roll wrecking machine.  Although a steam table got the better of vocalist --- at one point, most of the band’s trademark jumps went off without a hitch.  They opened with my favorite older song of theirs, “Set To Go”, and tore through a whole mess of songs in rapid succession including a cover of Kiss’ “God of Thunder” and a couple new ones that show the band’s songwriting getting better.  Good thing the band brought plenty of their own fans into the club, since most of the rockabilly folks headed out to the patio while they played.  Too bad, because they missed a good show. 

Then again, the same could be said of The Powerbombs’ fans, most of whom left before The Lords of the Highway played.  Their loss, because The Lords were firing on all cylinders this night.  The band opened with the aptly named instrumental “Rip Off”, sort of a Frankenstein monster of a song stitched together from pieces of other tunes.  They played just about everything I wanted to hear, including “72 Chevy Malibu”, “Drink, Drank, Drunk”, “Damn U Miller”, “Honky Tonk Asshole” and their cover of The Misfits “Hollywood Babylon”.  Just about every song in this band’s set is a winner, something you can’t say about too many bands these days.  Despite only being in the band for 3 weeks and this being his first gig with The Lords, new drummer Pete “Muscles” Yorko didn’t miss a beat.  It was a tough call deciding between this show and the free Cowslingers gig going on at the same time down at The Grog, but when the evening was over I had no regrets about my choice. (Bob Ignizio)