A Rare Georgia Satellites Concert Album Is Finally Getting Released

The Georgia Satellites are captured in all their prime rock & roll glory on a new previously unreleased concert album. Lightnin’ in a Bottle: The Official Live Album chronicles an 18-song set at the Cleveland club Peabody’s in 1988, a few months after the release of the Atlanta band’s second album Open All Night and a year after the widespread radio success of their Number Two hit “Keep Your Hands to Yourself.”

Lightnin’ in a Bottle: The Official Live Album is the group’s only concert album and will be released digitally and in physical form on CD and vinyl by Cleveland International Records. The CD and digital versions arrive Mar. 11, 2022, with the double-LP coming in July.

The setlist includes a mix of songs off the Georgia Satellites’ 1986 debut and 1988’s Open All Night, along with a number of covers, like the Ramones’ “I Wanna Be Sedated,” George Jones’ “White Lightnin’,” and Chuck Berry’s “Run Run Rudolph.” The band’s version of “Hippy Hippy Shake,” which appeared on the soundtrack to Tom Cruise’s 1988 bartender movie Cocktail, also pops up.

Made up of singer-guitarist Dan Baird, guitarist Rick Richards, bassist Rick Price, and drummer Mauro Magellan, the Georgia Satellites released three albums in the latter half of the Eighties, but none matched the success of their self-titled debut. That album, of course, had the success of “Keep Your Hands to Yourself,” which appealed to both rock and country fans, to drive it to platinum sales.

“Somebody made the comment that it was the song that saved rock & roll and ruined country music at the same time,” Baird told Rolling Stone in 2016 on the occasion of the song’s 30th anniversary. “It meant, it brought rock & roll back to its roots for a few minutes, but it turned the corner on country being afraid of dumb loud guitars.”

Lightnin’ in a Bottle Tracklist

1. “Whole Lotta Shakin’”
2. “Down and Down”
3.  “Run Run Rudolph”
4.  “Open All Night”
5.  “Don’t Pass Me By”
6.  “Nights of Mystery”
7.  “Battleship Chains”
8.  “Mon Cheri”
9.  “White Lightnin’”
10.  “I Go to Pieces”
11.  “Shake Your Hips”
12.  “Games People Play”
13.  “Can’t Stand the Pain”
14.  “Keep Your Hands to Yourself/It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll”
15. “Sheila”
16.  “Hippy Hippy Shake”
17.  “Railroad Steel”
18.  “I Wanna Be Sedated/Shake, Rattle & Roll”