B.B. King... Family Areana Gives Me The Blues

B.B. King
Family Arena
February 12, 2008

I come here not to praise the Family Arena but to bury it. If there is a more insipid venue in the metro area I am unaware of it. It is first of all in St. Charles. It is second of all a faceless, characterless, cement behemoth. It is third of all on a flood plane with a difficult parking lot with apparently random pylons which preclude you getting where you want to go. And... fourthly... it is called “The Family Arena” and if anything could sound more gay I am having a problem figuring out what it is. So we hate the Family Arena. I saw Weezer and Tenacious D there and still managed to have a bad time. The Family Arena is one of those poorly conceived, post apocalyptic, soviet, cement structures that are conceived of by well intentioned (hopefully) politicians and civil planners in an evil conspiracy with satan (real estate developers) that give rise to a structure born of a great idea which was ... “we need a big venue of our own in St. Charles”. noble idea but carried out with a numbing sameness every time whether in Bloomington Illinois, St. Charles Missouri or Timbuktu. These places are soul less with bad sound, lighting and ambience. Enough said.

My friend was kind enough to invite me to see B.B. King with he and my God Son. I had never seen B.B. King and had wanted to for some time (30 years) but had never really justified it. I feel bad I did not see him when he was a lot younger... say 60 but at this point you have to say that it becomes important to see him before her dies. Seeing him with my friend and his kid, an aspiring guitar player/rocker made it even better. Seeing B.B. King was a bucket list item. Not for me but for him. he had on his list that he wanted that fat, middle aged, bald, arrogant, piece of shit lawyer to see me play before I die. I owed it to him. He is 82. I wanted to give him a break.

Looking on the web I see BB has been using local acts to open for him in every town and while I am sure this is “nice” and also controls costs in not having another act or two to tour with you, the quality tends to be... spotty. Marquis Knox (pronounced mar-kees) opened. he is a local 17 year old blues wunderkind who came out solo, played guitar (poorly) and sang (awesomely). I could have watched him all night. He is around town with the Marquis Knox Band and I would guess they rock, because if he had a decent band (rather then his own average guitar) to wrap around that huge voice... it would be impressive. He is someone I definitely will catch again. He only was up for about 15 minutes and then we were “blessed” by the appearance of “Big George Brock”. Brock has been on the St. Louis blues scene for 50 years and looking him up on the web has a lot of stories to tell but the bottom line is that his band and backup singer were of average quality as was his harp playing. One thing about St. Louis is that you can see pretty good blues music 7 nights a week at bars in Soulard so this just left me a little cold. The highlight of the night was watching the old man lay on the floor of the stage wailing on his harp. Weather this was a stage ploy, he was having back spasms or a stroke remains to be told but at least it was different. He was... eminently missable.

The show started at 7:30 with the opening act which meant BB did not wander up till about 9 or more likely about 9:20. He travels with the BB King Blues band and the fact is... they can really play. The talent level of four horns, a bass, a drummer, a keyboardist and another guitar player is so high that you cannot help but smile just to hear how crisp it all is... and perfect time... perfect time. These guys just played for 20 minutes and were very good with one of the horn players playing band leader... and then the man was pulled up to stage side in his golf cart and wandered up on stage.

82 is old for a man. My dad is 81 and in good shape but shit... that is old. I have lost a step at 46, BB has lost a basketball court. He sat on his chair and leaned back... and introduced his band with the requisite solos (a nice break from the normal practice of doing that at the end) and they all shined. Then he talked. The post dispatch said he played a dozen songs but i only counted 5 on his hour and twenty minutes or so on stage. Some stories were funny, some were droll, some were inspired and a little thoughtful... and all of them were long. He played his U-2 Song “When Love Comes To Town” he played “The Thrill is Gone” he played “Let The Good Times Roll” and he talked.

He has no chops anymore and the bands guitarist did the heavy lifting but this was not the blues guitarist you might want if your fan. What he does have is an effortless style that beautifully strums the sainted “Lucille” as he smiles, and sings. And he can still sing. he does not have the wind he did as a young man but he carries a tune and like Dylan or some of the other older guys he changes his arrangements to suit his current vocal capabilities. Unlike Dylan you can understand the words. The cramped seats in the family arena afforded a good view of the stage but ultimately the late hour 10:45 and cramps in my legs begged for an ending of the set which due to Family Arena curfew had us in the car and on our way home well before 11:00.
It was a good show and a good experience. His band was awesome but as is often the case with “legends” this was more performance heart and a homage to his former greatness then it was a night of kick ass blues guitar. I am happy the guy is still around and how blessed would i feel at 82 to have a couple of thousand people come see me every night. He has tour dates through June and is among the long list of people who are better men then I. Take on of his old albums... put it on and listen and you will get a lot more of the man then this live show, but still, I was happy to go and pay my respects to the man, and his guitar.