Concert Review: B.B. King at the Civic

B.B. King's concert felt like a 65-minute open rehearsal. Photo / Dean Purcell

Few things are more sad, uncomfortable and disappointing than witnessing a once-towering talent in its decline.

But for more than half an hour after he arrived to a standing ovation, B.B. King barely played a note or sang, but rather made a prolonged and rambling introduction of his eight-piece band (embarrassingly mixing up names) and brought out his two managers (really?), offered a short flicker of blues, then was distracted again when he began introducing and talking about family members in the audience.

And throughout the night he punctuated the short and often incomplete bursts of music - his singing still powerful, his guitar playing a shadow of the fluidity and mercurial style that is his signature - with missed cues, comments to the band and anecdotes that didn't quite go anywhere.

Sometimes this seemed like an open rehearsal - about 65 minutes on stage, much of that not actually playing, the band comping uncomfortably behind his chat.

By the end, when he was inviting the audience to sing You Are My Sunshine and offering When the Saints (twice), it was clear the great King - who reminded us repeatedly he was 85 - was doing this for the adulation and the applause, scattered though it was at times.

We were in the presence of a genius, but what had made him one was conspicuously absent most of the night, other than when he played raw but truncated versions of Keys to the Highway and a New Orleans-styled See That My Grave is Kept Clean.

The night had begun well with a typically commanding performance by Paul Ubana Jones, whose big voice and enormous acoustic playing filled the hall (Rest in My Arms and his rejigging of Norwegian Wood the standouts). The concert highpoint was the powerful Ruthie Foster and her band ("three dreadlocked sisters from Texas") who delivered joyous gospel, the soul sound of Motown and Sam Cooke, some Texas blues and snatches of funk which won them a roaring standing ovation.

Someone should sign them for a return visit right now; they were thrilling.

But as for the big man? Glimpse of what once was, but otherwise just sad to witness. Still, he got a standing ovation and stuck around dispensing guitar picks and enjoying the adulation. Maybe that's why he still does it at 85. If it is, it's even more of a shame.

MUSIC

Who: B.B. King, Ruthie Foster, Paul Ubana Jones.

Where: Civic, Sunday.