An interesting thing happened last night. A friend of mine, George, was given tickets to the BB King show at the Jubilee Auditorium — and his wife couldn’t go, so he took me! Thanks George! It was a great show — He’s an old guy (81 years old) and spent a lot of time talking, but it was fun and he played some fantastic music. We were most impressed with the bass player and drummer, who played – literally – non-stop for 2 hours. Even while BB was talking, they were vamping behind him — continuously!
Now the cool part. Nicki, another friend of mine, had met BB King’s bus driver at a bar a couple nights before. He gave her some tickets to the show, and offered to take them backstage afterwards. Well, she let George and I tag along, so we went and met BB King!
It was very cool! There were about 20 of us that went backstage, and it was like BB was holding court. He was sitting in a comfy chair, and you went to him, he didn’t come to you. But he seemed like a really nice old guy. Asked us how we were, what we thought of the show, you know, small talk stuff. But still, it was VERY COOL.
Anyway, the gallery has a BB King gallery now with cell phone pictures for proof, and I scanned the photo that he autographed for us. Yes, right there for us.
Thanks again George and Nicki!
Ian that is a very cool story and without in any way wanting to take away from it, I went backstage at a bb king concert in 1982 or 83 (late highschool) , met the man just like you did. We drank beer with the band and spent 30 – 40 minutes talking shite with him ….
I think the backstage has cooled off for him. He’s pretty old, and doesn’t move around much — during the show, he was seated. Still very cool. I had remembered that you went to see him years ago, but I didn’t know you went backstage too. Neat!
Very neat…he’s got diabetes and I’m amazed that he can keep playin’ ole Lucille….(or whoever it is now)…great that you got to meet the old gentleman….can you imagine the life of touring at that age!!!? ….