BB King Blues Festival

Old guitarists never die.. they simply kick some serious butt at Chastain. At almost 78 BB King and Jeff Beck, a mere boy in comparison, brought the BB King Blues Festival to Chastain at the weekend ending the Classic Chastain series in style. The Champaign and Brie picnic crowd even looked up from their tables when former Yardbird Beck strutted around the stage pumping out some pretty cool sounds that bands half his age would be hard pressed to come up with. From Asian pop to techno and blues he ran the musical gauntlet and came out the other end unscathed with not a word sung and only a handful spoken. By contrast, BB King and fretted long time companion Lucille didn’t shut up all night and a damn good thing too. You could feel the years of a remarkable life ooze from his fingers and into the neck of that old guitar. The highlight came with Beck joining King on stage for a couple of very smooth jams at the end of a magical set. Moments like this are few and far between these days and I will savor it for some time to come