Leslie Michele Derrough

Playing at least twenty songs from their career, they covered all their favored albums: Stained Glass, Screaming For Vengeance, Point Of Entry, Defenders Of The Faith and Rocka Rolla. With the medieval growling of Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs” echoing from the speakers, prepping the already highly eager fans, the curtain dropped and the gods began rumbling through “Rapid Fire”, “Metal Gods”, “Heading Out To The Highway” and “Judas Rising”.

Steppenwolf may have famously sang that we were born to be wild, but on a hot late November night in New Orleans the band sitting with me upstairs at the House Of Blues looks just a little frayed around the edges, as if they could stretch out on the couches and go soundly asleep. It is the official last show of their long tour and Jonathan Tyler and the Northern Lights are feeling mixed emotions.

Coming out in a red-hot Porter Wagoner-styled ensemble, upon spying cameras in the hands of a few, he coaxed them into taking as many photos as they wanted: “I didn’t put this suit on for nothing”, he quipped. He would make a disco ball-like re-entrance for the encore in a mini-mirror-plated suit shooting bolts of reflected light throughout the intimate theatre. Getting everyone in a good-time mood, his opening repertoire included “Beautiful Homes”, “Dancing”, “Somebody’s Crying” and “I Want Your Love” which had Yatovitz doing his “dance of love”. “If you enjoy him, you can take him home,” deadpanned  Isaak.