23 February 2009

Two remarkable blues musicians


Sunday night I went to see blues legends B.B King and Buddy Guy perform at the Beacon Theatre with my dear friend David (the Geek Whisperer).

Buddy Guy took the stage first and played classic blues, along with some killer solos. It was incredible. Then he announced he was bringing out a 9-year old kid to play along. The kids name was Quinn, and he was prodigious. Not seeing him on stage, one would have thought he played guitar for decades. Buddy and Quinn shared the spotlight for a couple songs, then Buddy put his guitar down and let Quinn take it away as lead guitar (Buddy was vocals).

After an intermission B.B. King’s Blues Band took to the stage and played two songs before B.B. King came on stage. There was a chair up front and center, where he just sat and jammed for the rest of the evening.

B.B. King wears his crown as the King of Blues exceptionally well. At age 83, he is still light on his feet, singing and playing the blues with relentless passion. Time has no effect on B.B., other than adding to his wide array of fans, and making him more popular than ever. As a B.B. King “virgin,” I can attest to this quite well.

B.B. King spends half of his time on stage playing belting out incredible lyrics, strumming on his guitar like no other, and the other half interacting with the audience. He is quite the funny dude. He loves woman, and he is not afraid to let you know.

B.B. brought out Buddy and Quinn halfway through his set. The three of them jammed out to a few tunes, and then B.B. finished a phenomenal set.

The concert was incredible, however, the audience wasn’t so great. I don’t know about you, but I cant sit still listening to music, so forget about live music. I tend to jam out to anything and everything. So just as usual, David and I were bopping around and moving our head to the tunes. It seemed to me like we were one of the few in the whole theater to be any what amused by the music we were listening to (a usual for me). Both Buddy Guy and B.B. King have incredible showmanship mind-boggling musical talent. So how can you not??

2 comments:

BrieAnn said...

I would have been bopping my head right along with you! I'm sure that EVERYONE will be rocking out to Lady Gaga, though, you and me included!

Skanko said...

holy crap, that sounds like an amazing show.