Review: Sunday Blues with the King of Blues (B.B. King – Ottawa)

Wow, I am really slow on playing catchup. I think it’s because I want these entries to be of a high caliber and catch the emotions, the fun times and the sheer insanity that can only be recreated in one of those cool machines from the movie Strange Days. You know, the ones where you can relive your old videotapes like YOU WERE ACTUALLY THERE. If you have not seen this movie, go nab it. I love it. Post-apocalyptic future and all of that jazz.

Sunday we awoke to clear heads all around and after hauling Philipp out of bed to get a bite to eat, we found a diner on the corner. I made the mistake of ordering the smoked meat sandwich with the free soup. Let me tell you, if you know there is a plate of fries and a sandwich coming your way anyhow, the soup is a little too much. That being said, I had to leave the entire plate of fries as the sandwich was the size of my head! Everyone was impressed at the sheer size of this monstrosity which I gazed at wondering if I could attempt such a feat. Heck, I was hitting the road home soon, so why not?

On our way back we said our goodbyes to Philipp and then popped into a geek store which had statues and action figures of your favourite comic book and movie heroes. Very cool, but very expensive. They even had a replica of the Terminator series robots for $9,000. That’s a pretty penny to spend, but it was life size!

Mike and I cruised home in the late afternoon…it was a beautiful drive through the countryside and it rejuvenated me after a hard weekend of late nights. I think I’m going to start taking alternate routes to places so I can admire the scenery.

I headed over to Vero’s place where she was unfortunately not there. She still doesn’t have a phone at her place so it’s a gamble whenever I head over there. Along the way, I picked up some form of tree at the Garden Center as a housewarming gift which I named Jacque Letrie. I left it on her porch and headed home. A few hours later she called from the mall and I headed back to see her and she had a good laugh when she saw Jacques sitting alone on the front porch! After hanging out in her pad for awhile (which hasn’t been organized yet due to the painters being late to paint the place (15 days late! Inexcusable!)) I then headed to the National Arts Center with tickets in hand to see the legendary B.B. King.

I arrived and checked out the merchandise booth which had some amazing deals! I especially like the limited edition lithograph of a painting of B.B. for $25. I passed on that purchase and picked up a sweet vintage tour poster for $10. When I say vintage, it had a vintage style to it but still listed the tour dates of the current tour. Very cool. Haven’t seen a $10 tour poster in a long time. Something tells me that the King of Blues doesn’t overcharge for merchandise like we see a lot of other bands do.

Benoit, Cinthia, Trish and Melissa found me and after waiting for Mike for awhile, we figured we should head into the auditorium as the show was starting in 5 minutes. Upon entering I told Trish how I really had to go to the washroom but she suggested I wait for the intermission or be locked out for the first half!

We found Mike already in his seat and we took our seats in the second row of the balcony area. While far away from the stage, I don’t know if I would like to have spent much more money to sit closer (they were expensive seats to begin with). The promoter of the show came out to tell us that we sold out the fastest on the entire tour and everyone was excited for the night! The backing band came out and did their thing for 15 minutes and then the King of Blues himself comes strutting out in a gold jacket! We gave him a standing ovation before he even got to his seat and you could see he was enjoying the attention.

At 81 years old, this man still has fun. I would say in the 2 hour concert, half of that time was spent telling us stories of his youth, or how ‘young’ his band members were (young being 60+ in age!) and how the world works in the eyes of the King.

Here’s some examples of some funny stories (for my memory bank of a blog) (all paraphrased of course!)
B.B. King: Now, this next song sometimes gets the men in trouble. I want the men to sing the chorus ‘(ain’t it) Just Like a Woman.’ Now sometimes I’ve had men come to me and say they had a great time at the concert but after singing that chorus, their lady friend just wasn’t impressed with them! Then you go home after a good night out with a lady and she don’t make no supper. I’m not talking about the food either. 😉

B.B. King: Now, years ago, a man could go out and gamble a little and bring home $10 – $15 to his lady and she would accept it without a question and give you a kiss and say “Thank you B.B.”. Nowadays, you bring home $200-$300 and the first thing she says is “Where were you all night long B.B.? How do you have all that money? Were you GAMBLING? Unbelievable!” but then they take it anyway and there’s no kiss for B.B.

He also talked about how it was Mother’s Day and how we should all love our mothers, but also love the men who will eventually make the women in the room mothers. I would like to say that B.B. King put a special shout out to my own mother, but that never happened even though I passed him a lot of cash to do so. (Really Mom, I did!). At this moment I’d like to wish Mom a Happy Mother’s Day 5 days after the fact. I live by the credo ‘better late than never’. I would also like to point out that when I ordered flowers on the Monday morning, the lady at the flower shop said to me “Now, I was going to put away the Mother’s Day decorations this morning but I KNEW there would be someone like you giving me a call today!”

In the last 30 minutes there was less talk and a lot more jamming. This is the high point of the night for me. To see the King of Blues in action. He was having a great time that night. I don’t know how long his concerts usually go for but I had a feeling that he was only scheduled for 90 minutes but he ended up playing for 2 hours. He was very reluctant to be leaving the stage. He thrives on his audience (which was an excellent audience by the way…very respectful). At the end of the night, he stood up (with the help of friends) and threw out guitar picks and what appeared to be gold chains of sorts. I mentioned how it was ‘Bling from the King!’.

Let’s not forget that they were in the middle of When Love Came to Town and no one shouted out the chorus line so he stopped the entire band and gave us a lecture of how unbelievable it was not to know this song as U2 wrote it and how they are just as famous as B.B. Something tells me this is part of the humour in the show and they just play off of it as they did this a few times in the night.

The concert brought revelations of how blues in the past (if not the present which I don’t know about) was played and there was a lot of interaction and storytelling involved. It also makes me realize that I have to start checking out local artists and not the big names in town all the time. Sure, they are great because of who they are, but I’m sure there are a ton of local artists out there (here’s a shout out to my fave band from Ottawa – For The Mathematics who coincidentally have an interview posted at Chartattack.com today!).

Too bad that there was no intermission as my bladder exploded and had to be put back together again.

If anyone can afford to and has the opportunity to go see B.B. King in concert, do it. He is amazing. Everyone had a great time and it wasn’t your average concert.