on the B.B. King concert

It was good. In terms of quality, much better than when I saw Dylan in Sioux Falls way back when (although that night was memorable in a number of ways: 1) it was Dylan, after all, 2) Ryan (Scott's older brother, and one of my roommates at the time) could NOT stop shouting "It's f***ing Bob Dylan! It's f***ing Bob Dylan!", 3) to our left sat several of the Dordt profs, including Charlie Adams and wife, and Syd Hielema). After all these years, Dylan's voice just does not sound the same any more, whereas B.B. King's guitar work sounds as tight as his screaming singing blues. And if not for the chair where he sat during the concert, it'd be hard to notice he's 80 years old already. Some interesting moments of the evening:

- I park, start walking to the Palace Theatre, and hear a man inside a car asking two cops for directions to the garage (where I just parked). One of the officers didn't know, and was pointing in the wrong direction. I approached, said "No, it's not there, go down this street, take the first left". The one cop glared angrily at me, the other one smiled and nodded "thanks".

- The two opening acts featured lots of blackface Twin Reverbs, which made me proud, although I'll NEVER get those sounds out of mine.

- B.B. King's Lucille was plugged into some sort of heavily scratched maroon solid state-looking amp, which after some research is a discontinued Gibson Lab 2x12.

- Near the end B.B. King invited a young lady in the audience to come up and play with him. She had loooong hair, down to her ankles, and was a really good blues player. They sat her next to King, and that was the best part of the concert: both trading licks. It was beautiful to watch his face while she played, you could tell he was having so much fun.

In conclusion I'm very glad to have been there. I mean, he's an institution.