Last night, we in the Frankfurt area were honored by an appearance of His Majesty, the King of the Blues, Mr. BB King.
He offered us 1 1/2 hours of Blues, new and old. It was some what sad to see the King of Blues slowing down and becoming the senior diplomat of Blues Music. Of course we were glad he decided to come by and treat us to his Blues, and his sweet Lucille one more time
I have seen BB perform many times through the years and can testify that he has always been and remains the ultimate showman. After his last visit which was billed as …..the last hurrah…… so to say, we thought we would never see The Great BB King again……..
But as it often happens with Blues singers…. “goodbye” does not always mean “Goodbye”. Some times its more like , as they say in the German language “Auf Wiedersehen” translated: “Here’s to when we meet again”. And so it was with BB King. The opening act, well, at best the band was tolerable.
They made such an impression on me that I can’t even remember their name. They appeared to have practiced and choreographed every hand move, facial mimic, and gesture. I don’t know how to categorize the act but i can say that passionate blues performers they were not. Very artificial. Some how the soul of the Music was left on the tour bus if you know what I mean. My frau and I listened to a song and a half, looked at each other with disbelief and headed for the exit to have a beer and a cigarette. How this group was selected to be the opening act for BB king I’ll never know. Singer must be the brother in law of the producer or something….. I just don’t get it. Bad call on the part of the organizers……….curtain closes on the opening act. In any case the evening was saved as soon as the BB king orchestra hit the first note. You new the weather was about to improve. And so it did. It was, as always when the king comes to town an entertaining night of Blues, Blues Stories and Blues history. Even at 83 years old, BB and his gang held the audience for the full hour and half. One thing I could not understand however was that the crowd did not bring him back for an an cour. I have never seen this before in all the concerts I’ve attended over the years…and I have seen my share. Here we have the senior diplomat of the blues, he is 83 years old, he dedicated his life to the Music we love and came to see him perform, we may not see him here again, he just got through giving us his best for 1 and 1/2 hours. …. the crowd was courteous on the last song and gave BB a nice round of applause …………. they then got up out of their seats and headed for the door………….the crowd could not bring them selves to honor him with a call to “encore”………. shame on you. Shame on you.