SXSW 2008

AUSTIN – Think of a Blue Cheer concert as a health checkup.

If you've got loose fillings, tenderness in the lymph nodes, a touchy stomach, nasal congestion, dull tissue aches – most anything that the normal course of life could mask for a time – 40 minutes of this legendary trio's megawatt groove-blues will expose it. Heck, those at risk for pulmonary issues or osteoporosis may want to stay away, since Blue Cheer's oscillative power could theoretically trigger an anomaly or fracture.

Forty years and two months after its debut, Vincibus Eruptum, predated the coming onslaught of heavy metal, the then-cog of San Francisco's psychedelic music machine can still provide sonic spinal taps that actually feel pleasurable. Under the Emo's Annex tent at the stroke of midnight on Saturday morning, several hundred patients, most of whom appeared to have a pre-existing appreciation for Blue Cheer's strain of aural virulence, succumbed to the exam. The thousands of others who ambled by couldn't avoid witnessing the blessed gratuity.

Nor should they have. Appearances by historic musicians are part of the South by Southwest experience, but only this year's keynote figure, Lou Reed, means more to modern music than Blue Cheer (and frankly, even that statement is dubious). Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, both blaring blues-based provocateurs that are commonly considered heavy rock's inventors, appeared after this band. So did Alice Cooper. Only Jimi Hendrix, the Byrds and the Yardbirds could possibly claim comparable influence, and none of them were nearly as loud and invasive right out of the box.

Two-thirds of the original trio are part of today's version. Drummer Paul Whaley appeared a little nicked at the end of a short drum solo but otherwise performed ably and tribally. Singer-bassist Dickie Peterson, who looked like actor William Devane's skinny brother with long blond hair and round tinted spectacles, still shrieks and squawks like no one in rock can. His voice has elements of Ronnie Van Zant and Alice Cooper, delivered with a deep-seeded gravelliness and spirit that only comes from deviant thought and hard-core experience.

Though guitarist Duck McDonald didn't join the band until the late 1980s (well after its last U.S. release until 2007's prescient comeback, What Doesn't Kill You ... ), his playing defined the five-song gig as much as Mr. Peterson's vocals. Armed with a bushy, full-bodied distortion tone that penetrated innards like an ultrasound scan, his riffing and soloing pummeled but soothed with a knowingly heretic grace. His D-string slide during the central riff on "Doctor Please" sounded like a siren from an ambulance headed post-haste for Hell Memorial Hospital.

Three of the five songs performed came from Vincibus, including the act's signature 1968 remake of Eddie Cochran's "Summertime Blues."

Like the subject of that song, there ain't no cure available from Blue Cheer for whatever type of blues ail you. But the visceral physical it gives to force the blues out is a mighty good one, even past retirement age.