POP REVIEW : HARD-ROCKING JOE ELY AND FRIENDS HEAT UP THE ROXY

The Roxy stage is probably still smokin’ from the paint-blistering 100 minutes that Joe Ely and company played somewhere in the neighborhood of three feet above it Thursday night.

Drawing equally from his latest, largely excellent “Lord of the Highway” album and some USDA Choice selections from his catalogue of should-be classics, this was the long-heralded Ely’s hardest-rockin’ incarnation yet.

Backed by the swangin’est lil’ roadhouse blues-country-rock band this side of E Street, including the semi-legendary Bobby Keys on sax, Ely once again proved himself not only a relentless physical performer, but also an unusually expressive, leathery vocalist whose ear for finely detailed tunes keeps the scene from sinking into another night down at the boys’ locker room.

If there were any justice in this world, this proud son of Lubbock, Tex., would be packing hockey rinks instead of honky-tonks. Trade you three Bryan Adamses, two John Mellonvilles, a Dwight Yoakam and almost any other limp-picker you wanna name later for one Joe Ely. Wild as the West Texas wind this was. Catch him Sunday night at Bogart’s in Long Beach with Phil Alvin.

East L.A.’s Delgado Brothers, who just issued their first album on Hightone Records, opened with a rather monochromatic set of mostly minor-key blues grooves. Unpretentious. Also unprepossessing.