Buddy Guy, Shepherds Bush Empire, London, 24 June 2008

Anyone who knows of Buddy Guy will find it hard to disagree that there really is only one word that can sum the man up, and that word is "legend". If you are a music aficionado , you will know that this is the man who was a major influence on artists like Hendrix, Clapton, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Keith Richards, to name a few. I'll even go so far as to put my neck out to say that Buddy is responsible for bringing blues guitar and rock guitar together. Buddy has been vocal and honest about how, early on, black musicians were never given the same breaks as white musicians. There's a great video here.

Buddy is 72 and is such a legend that he received a very long, standing ovation from the sold out crowd as soon as he walked on to the stage, without even playing a note. It was emotional and rightly deserved.

Buddy's band consisted of 5 ultra talented and amazing musicians. Everything looked improvised (I mean, if they rehearsed the show then by damn they rehearsed it so well to make it look like it was all impromptu). Buddy was witty, charming and full of anecdotes. It didn't matter that he forgot a few words here and there or that he had a tendency to go off on a tangent, we were witnessing a part of music history and the only thing to do was to soak it up.

Buddy performed all of his crowd pleasing moves that he is so well known for - walking through the crowd, playing the guitar with his teeth, a towel, a drumstick... great singing from him as well, I got chills when he sang "Feels Like Rain". He got a loud cheer when he played a bit of Voodoo Chile - check out the video here. For an hour and a half I witnessed one of the greatest living legends of all time and I will never forget it.

Good review here.