Hard rock legends don’t disappoint their adoring crowd.

It’s hard for me to believe that 40 years have passed since Bad Company became the first artists signed to Led Zeppelin’s fledgling Swan Song label. Leaving behind their respective bands, Mick Ralphs (Mott the Hoople), Boz Burrell (King Crimson), and Paul Rodgers and Simon Kirke (Free) formed the supergroup that soundtracked a generation. Unfortunately, Burrell passed away in 2006, but the remaining members came together recently for a short U.S. tour that wrapped up this past Sunday in the Los Angeles.

I caught the penultimate show on Friday in Northern California. The crowd skewed older, but they sang along with every tune. That’s not a surprise: Bad Company packed their set with classic rock staples like “Can’t Get Enough,” “Feel Like Making Love,” and “Shooting Star.”

They opened with “Rock and Roll Fantasy,” which immediately put me back at the hangout near my junior high school, where this cut blared from the jukebox for months. Paul Rodgers hasn’t lost a bit of his muscular voice in the 35 years since those days.

Those moments are what make the heritage band circuit so special, those songs that are so interconnected with our memories that they may as well be part of our DNA.

What Bad Company songs take you back, and to where?

photos courtesy of the author

—originally posted at The Good Men Project